Fallout: It Takes Two
by Cesarz
Summary: Brothers Luke and Matthew Lightman must leave the safe confines of Vault 101 on a long, difficult journey across the Wasteland to search for their missing father, James, and to shape the wasteland forever. But will they succeed? Or will the Wasteland prove to be to great of an obstacle for them? No romances yet, but there will possibly be one (or two) in future.
1. Chapter One: Growing Up, So Very Fast

**A/N: ****Uh... Hello, I guess. ****This is my first foray into fanfiction and, honestly, I'm not sure what to say right now... I guess I'll just ask you to point out any imperfections you find. If you find any pop-culture references, be aware that they may or may not be intentional. If you spot any, give yourself a box internet cookies.**

**I like to think that I've got a somewhat original premise (In case you haven't guessed from the summary and title: the Lone Wanderer is two people - twins - in this story), though I'm probably wrong on that one and this has probably been done a thousand times. I just hope I can make an entertaining story to be enjoyed by people.**

**P.S: I've seen some other authors throw in s disclaimers around this point. And I'm nothing if not a bandwagon jumper, so...**

**Disclaimer: I obviously don't own Fallout. If you think I do, you should feel bad. ^_^**

**One: Growing Up, So Very, Very Fast**

_War... War never changes._

_Since the dawn of human kind, when our ancestors first discovered the killing power of rock and bone, blood has been spilled in the name of everything: from God to justice to simple, psychotic rage.  
In the year 2077, after millennia of armed conflict, the destructive nature of man could sustain itself no longer. The world was plunged into an abyss of nuclear fire and radiation._

_But it was not, as some had predicted, the end of the world. Instead, the apocalypse was simply the prologue to another bloody chapter of human history. For man had succeeded in destroying the world - but war, war never changes._

_In the early days, thousands were spared the horrors of the holocaust by taking refuge in enormous underground shelters, known as vaults. But when they emerged, they had only the hell of the wastes to greet them - all except those in Vault 101. For on that fateful day, when fire rained from the sky, the giant steel door of Vault 101 slid closed... and never reopened.  
Because, in Vault 101: no one ever enters, and no one ever leaves._

* * *

**21st April 2258 **

"The gene projection is ready, James." Said a female voice, muffled by a surgical mask. Nearby, a baby was squalling, having recently been birthed.

"Catherine... Catherine, this is our son." A tall man with dark hair and a neatly trimmed beard excitedly dragged a computer screen into place above a woman who was panting heavily. James Lightman was a brilliant scientist, with incredible ambition and wonderful plans for the wasteland. Fate, however, is a fickle thing and he would be forced to play a different role from what he had intended.

"Oh, how handsome..." She chuckled. "He's going to... look a little little like you, James..." It was true, the baby would have the same jaw line when he was eighteen as his father, similar hair (though closer to his mother's in colour), and the same greyish eyes.

"Look like me..." James mused, "How about Luke, for a name?"

"I..." Catherine suddenly began panting heavily, "James... I-" She cried out in pain.

"Catherine, what's wrong?" James was frantic, desperately looking to his peers for answers.

"I don't think we're done here." The female voice from before declared.

"What do you mean not done?" James demanded, holding his wife's hand tightly.

"I mean there's more to come, James." The woman said. "Twins." She clarified.

The first baby continued to cry, a chorus which was soon joined by that of his brother. Unfortunately for them both, and for the Capital Wasteland, their mother expired shortly afterwards, her body unable to cope with the stress of birthing two children and lacking proper medical facilities. The scavenged medical equipment available was dated and poorly maintained.

In the end, the two boys were given the names Matthew and Luke, coincidentally, also the names of two gospels of the Bible, their mother's favourite book, though she was not particularly religious. She allowed the text to influence her work and dreams. This dead woman's faith, her husband's ambition, and her sons' determination would change the wasteland forever. The children were raised by their father, alone, in Vault 101, one of 122 Vault-Tec vaults scattered across the old United States, ostensibly in order to save at least some Americans from the horrors of atomic warfare. In truth, however, their purpose was far, far darker.

Matthew and Luke Lightman were fraternal twins, so they didn't look exactly alike. As they differed in appearance, they did so in personality also. James would come to love them both equally; everything he did, he did for his sons. He had immense pride for them both, and in all their achievements, no matter how small. They were frequently read too by their father from any and all books which were available from a young age. One particular passage from the Bible was drilled into their memories - Revelation 21:6: "I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely." To the children, it was just a favourite passage of their faceless mother, to Cathernine Lightman, it represented everything she dreamed of for the wasteland, a dream shared by her husband.

While James was the vault's chief physician, he frequently came into conflict with the vault's Overseer, Alphonse Almodovar, who held differing views on what the interests of the vault's inhabitants were. One was idealistic to the point of naïvity, the other stuck firmly to his autocratic principles. This conflict did little to stop James' children forming a friendship with Alphonse's daughter, Amata. This friendship changed over the years, with Matthew coming to distance himself from Amata, instead becoming friends with a certain Freddie Gomez, another child of the vault.

As their friendships changed, so did the brothers personalities. Matthew became something of a rebellious teenager, often getting himself and Freddie into trouble. He was witty and sarcastic; a class clown, he was also slightly egotistical. He was also selfless (in his own way), and very clever, though not especially book-smart. Despite being rather outgoing, Matthew was always suspicious of people - all people, with the sole exception on his brother.

Luke, on the other hand, never acted out much, being thought soft as boring by his brother. He was very much a B student, though he was diligent and pragmatic. He lacked the sharp wit of his brother, most of his jokes succeeding only in getting people to laugh at him, but was good at talking to people; a charmer, one might say. He too was selfless, and quick to forgive other people, perhaps too quick. He was much less prone to bouts of pessimism or cynicism than his sibling.

As they approached sixteen, their appearance differed in more than a few ways. Luke was possessed of sandy blonde hair, with grey eyes. His hair was messy and unkempt, looking a little like a mop. It curled at the ends, making it difficult to work into anything resembling a real style. Bedhead would have been an appropriate description. His brother had darker hair, brown like their father's. He changed his hairstyle frequently, but on their sixteenth birthday, it was close cut. Both of them were quite tall, Matthew was just under six feet tall, 5'10 exactly. Luke stood a couple of inches shorter, at 5'8.

* * *

**10th April 2273**

"Hand me the wrench, Freddie." Matthew whispered, kneeling before the pipes.

"What are you going to do?" His friend asked, an excited, if worried, look on his face.

The two teens had entered the private bathroom of Herman Gomez, Freddie's father and a vault security guard. Freddie had come to Matthew a few days ago, asking for help with a prank. Most of Freddie's ideas were boring, our outright lethal (such as the one which would replace his father's medicines with sugar pills), so Matthew had stepped in to help. They had "borrowed" a tool bag from the engineer's quarters and were currently in the target's bathroom.

Matthew placed the wrench onto the fixing and tried to twist it out if place, it took some effort, but eventually, the fixing came loose, cold water began to drip onto the floor.

"This is going to be a classic..." Freddie giggled, watching over him.  
Matthew slid out from underneath the sink and stood up.

"Let's go, it'll be a while until your dad gets back, in the mean time, we'll go shoot some roaches down in the reactor level."

The pair left the bathroom and the Gomez apartment, walking through the vault while attempting to look inconspicuous. Security Officer Kendall passed them as they neared the cafeteria, Matthew hid the tool bag behind his back, smiled, and nodded at the Officer, who merely blinked in response.

As they descended to the reactor level, Matthew dumped the tool bag by a large piece of machinery 'someone'll find it eventually,' he thought to himself.  
The boys entered a room which was used for storage and adjoining the Vault's Geothermal Reactor chamber. Matthew walked over to an overturned, rusted locked and pulled it open. He withdrew the BB gun and cocked it.

"Let's hunt roaches!" He grinned at his friend.

As they trecked through the vault's dark maintenance tunnels, they talked and took turns sniping at radroaches. Most of the smaller roaches only took a shot or two to kill, and the bigger ones always scuttled away before they could kill them. It was good fun. While they walked, they also talked about the important issues of the week. Important for two fifteen year old boys, anyway.

"So..." Freddie said, breaking a short silence which had taken hold. "I've heard things about your brother and Amata."

Matthew chuckled as he fired a shot at a particularly puny insect, causing its head to implode. "I've heard things too. They're probably not true."

"Probably? But not definately?" Freddie asked, taking the rifle from Matthew and searching for a target.

"No, they're definately not true. There's no way anything is going on between them." He responded.

"But what makes you so sure?"

"Well..." Matthew considered what he was about to say. "Luke says they're just friends."

"What Luke says-" Freddie cut himself short as he quickly aimed his rifle and fired at a scuttling radroach. "Damn." He sighed as the roach fled, unharmed by the pellet. "What Luke says and what Luke does are two different things."

He grinned and handed the rifle back to Matthew. "Maybe it's just wishful thinking on your end? Are you jealous?"

"No!" He said, aghast. "No way."

"Why? What's wrong with Amata?"

"Nothing, its just..." He struggled to think of a response.

"You prefer Christine Kendall?" He teased. "So do I."

Matthew growled and shoved Freddie with the butt of the rifle. "No, I-"

The boys froze when they heard voices and footsteps impacting off the concrete. They thought quickly and stuffed themselves into a locker.

They peered through a gap in the locker and watched two people come to a halt just before them. Their faces were obscured by the darkness, but their voices were unmistakable.

"Your so-called experiments are a waste of time, Doctor Lightman." A voice called out. It was the Overseer, unquestioned, unlimited leader of Vault 101.  
"These experiments can work, Alphonse. They will work." Said James, Matthew's father and the vault's head of medicine.

"Even if they do succeed, my first priority is the well being of the people of this vault, not the health of savages."

"Don't insult me, Alphonse." James crossed his arms.

"Enough!" He slammed his right fist into his left palm. "You will address me by my proper title, Doctor; I will not continue to tolerate your insubordination like I have for these past fifteen years."

At that, the Overseer stormed away, footsteps ringing through the concrete. James simply stood there, watching him for a long time until all was quiet but for the soft dripping of a leaking pipe. James looked towards where Matthew and Freddie were hiding, they both held their breath. The Doctor's face was expressionless, unreadable. Just as Mattew felt like his lungs were about to explode, his father walked down the tunnel, moving quickly, almost jogging.  
The boys tumbled out of the locker as quietly as they could, taking in great lungfulls of damp air.

"What the hell was that all about?" Freddie whispered, in between gasps.  
Matthew shook his head, simply watching the pin-prick of his father as he moved around a corner.

He picked up the BB gun. "Come on, there aren't many roaches today."

* * *

**14th May 2274**

The light was blinding as his father shined it into his eye.  
"As far as I can tell, you're a perfectly health sixteen year-old boy, Luke. So yes, you have to go to class and take the exam." Dr Lightman didn't look particularly pleased.

"But I can't - I'm sick, really." Luke said, doing his best "sick voice" and coughing a little.

"No, you're not. Really." He said firmly. "When I started studying medicine one of the first things O learned was how to spot a kid pretending to be sick to not have to take a test."

"Somehow, I doubt that, dad." Luke rolled his eye.

"Come on now, I know you're nervous, but you're sixteen now so you have to take the GOAT. Besides, it's not so bad, and everybody has to do it. I had to, you have to, and your brother has to."

Luke sighed and forced a smile. "Fine, if you say so dad."

"Hey, I don't make the rules." James put his instruments aside and crossed his arms.

"Maybe if you did," he imitated his father's stance, "this place would be a little nicer."

"Don't talk like that. The Overseer has his job for a reason, he-"

"Shelters us and protects us from the fires of the wastes. Gives us life where there is death, et cetera, et cetera. Yes dad, I've heard it all before." He rolled his eyes.

James smiled. "Okay, okay." He relented. "But listen son, this place, this vault... It's the safest place in the world and its the best place for you. You can't ever leave here."

Luke remained silent for a moment. "What's it like up there?" He thumbed upwards, towards the ceiling.

James seemed to hesitate for a moment. "I imagine its like hell. People scrounging for irradiated food and water, struggling to survive against mutants and raiders. Killing each other every day, smothering their own children to spare them the pain of life..." He quieted, his face was unreadable.

"But how do you know? What if the world is better? What if there is a bustling city up there, with healthy, happy people. Just waiting outside the door for us to open up, and go outside?"

James laughed. "If only that were true, son." He looked down at his pip-boy. "Now go, quickly, you wouldn't want to be late."

"Bye, dad." He said as he left. He looked around the room, he had stepped into. Stanley, the vault's chief technician, sitting on a bed in the corner. Jonas, Dr Lightman's assistant, was tending to him, examining his throat. Luke briefly wondered what was wrong with him as he left the medical room.

Turning to his right, he continued down the corridor towards the classroom. 'Trouble ahead,' he thought. In the distance, he could see Amata, his lifelong friend surrounded by Butch DeLoria and his "gang" the "Tunnel Snakes".

Standing beside Butch was Wally Mack and Paul Hannon. All were wearing their signature leather jackets. Luke sometimes wondered where they had had those jackets made, but never bothered to ask.

"How'd you like to find out the real meaning of the 'Tunnel Snakes,' Amata?" Butch air quoted as he said Tunnel Snakes. Luke hated it when people did that.

"Hey, Butch." Luke said, tapping him on the shoulder. The boy turned around to face him. "Is there a problem here?"

Butch cast a sidelong glance towards his peers, them returned his gaze to Luke. "Nothing which involves you, loser." He said, icily.

"Loser?" Luke asked. "I'm not the one harassing girls in the hallway, Butch. Not got anything better to do? Did your mom waste the ration tokens on booze again?"

"What the fuck did you say?" Butch asked, pressing his forehead against Luke's. Luke returned the gesture

"I said, 'did your mom waste your rations on booze again?' What is it this time, Butch, vodka or whiskey?"

Butch didnt answer with words, he simply shoved Luke in the chest and swung his fist towards his face, it hit Luke square in the jaw, staggering him.

"Say it again, Loser!" Butch spat, clearly quite angry.

Luke ran at Butch, head butting him in the stomach. They both hit the cold metal floor and began rolling around, punching each other. All the while Amata was yelling for them to stop and the other Tunnel Snakes jeered and shouted encouragements to their leader.

Luke eventually managed to bring his knee up into Butch's groin, who cried out in pain. Luke pushed him over, knelt on top of him, and started punching at his face. He only managed to get in a couple of punches before Paul and Wally grabbed his arms, pulling him back.

"You're dead, kid!" Butch shouted from the floor, using the wall to support himself as he stood up. Luke struggled against the Tunnel Snakes as Butch approached him, his fists curled into balls. He keeled over onto his knees as Luke kicked him in the midsection. Luke wrenched his arm free of Wally Mack and elbowed him in the face, before swinging his arm at Paul, who ducked out of the way and fled down the hallway.

Wally backed away and pulled Butch to his feet. "This isn't over, kid. Not by a long shot." Butch spat, literally, as he walked away.

Luke turned his attention to Amata, she sighed in relief. "Glad that's over." She said. "Thanks for getting rid of those assholes." She smiled.

"I'm glad I could be your knight in shining armour." He smirked checking to see if he was bleeding.

"Don't flatter yourself, Luke. I could probably have handled them in my own, you know. You just saved me the trouble."

"Oh really? How would you have dealt with it?" He asked, still smiling.

"Knee them in the crotch." She said simply.

Luke winced in imagined pain as he thought back to Butch's face. "Well. I won't be messing with you, that's for sure." He held out his arm, "but anyway, shall we get this over with?"

She took his arm in hers and giggled. "Yes, let's." They walked into the classroom together.

"Ah, here we are, the last two students." Mr Brotch said as they entered, clapping his hands. "Heard a little commotion out there," he rolled his eyes, "anything wrong."

"No, Mister Brotch." They both said.

"Okay then. Are you ready for the test, Luke, Amata?" He looked at each of them in turn.

"Yep. I bet I'll ace it!" Luke grinned.

"I'm sure you will, seeing as its multiple choice with no wrong answers." The teacher rolled his eyes again and Luke moved to take his seat.

He looked around the room, there were twenty students, sitting in two rows of ten, facing a screen at the end of the room. Luke was seated in the third seat on the right, Matthew was on the eighth seat kpon the left. Mr. Brotch slowly walked to the front of the room and held out a sheet of paper in front of him, whereupon he began halfheartedly reading out questions,

The GOAT was a pretty strange test. Mr. Brotch read out a serious of scenarios, for which Luke was supposed to select his response by circling A, B, C, or D. Few of the solutions offered seemed to be very practical or logical, Luke pondered what kind of formula or equation was used in determining one's final result.

Both Luke and Matthew circled random letters throughout most of the test. The last question, both brothers recognised as merely an exercise in propaganda. All the answers were "the Overseer." Luke chose option A. Matthew scrawled "E. Matthew Lightman" beneath option D.

"Well, it looks like you'll be working with Stanley, Matthew. Vault Technician. I hope you can finally get that old jukebox fixed."

Matthew wasn't exactly thrilled with his new job, it involved a lot of grease and oil and dirt. Still, it could've been worse, so he accepted his position graciously.

Luke tapped his foot as he waited for his results.

"Wow. Wow. It says here you're going to be the vaults marriage counsellor." Mr Brotch suppressed a laugh. "It almost makes me want to get married, just to be able to avail myself of your services, Luke." At that, he could suppress it no longer, he burst into laughter, tears began rolling down his face. Luke marched away, unhappily.

Amata ended up getting a position in the medical facility, fast tracked to becoming the vaults new chief physician, while Butch became a hairdresser (though he never called himself anything other than a barber).

Life in the vault continued for the two brothers, they tried to keep themselves busy with their new jobs, but that was easier said than done, particularly for Luke, as few of the couples in the vault had problems. James, their father, continued his own - secret - work, against the wishes of the Overseer. All the while, he prepared to meet what he believed was his destiny.

**24th May 2277**

Matthew rolled over in his bed, burying his face in his pillow, he heard the door of his room hiss open.

"Five more minutes, Dad..." He groaned. He was enjoying his dream and would have been happy to remain in bed for the rest of the day. He could hear voices, but he did his best to block them out.

Quite suddenly, somebody shook him violently awake. He opened his eyes with a start. He saw Amata standing over him. 'What a coincidence,' he thought.

"Wake up! Come on, get out of bed." She said, she looked distraught.

Still lying down, Matthew looked over at the other bed in the room, his brother was dragging himself out of it, groggily. "Funny I should see you here, Amata." Matthew said, "I was just dreaming about you..." He smiled wickedly. His head jerked to the side as she slapped him.

He brought his hand to his face, it really hurt, but he was awake now.

"Now's not the time, Matthew." She said. "This is serious, my father's men are out to get you! You've got to get out of here! They've... They've killed Jonas. I managed to get away, so I could warn you." She began to sob. Matthew sat up in bed, supporting himself with his elbows. Luke moved over to his friend, hugging her, holding her in his arms.

"What... What's going on, Amata?" Luke asked, his face was pale.

"It's your dad. He's gone! He's left the vault."

Both of the brothers felt like they had ran into a brick wall with those words. Matthew struggled to think of something to say. Luke spoke for him. "What!? Why?"

"You mean... You don't know, he didn't tell you?" She asked, looking at each if them in turn.

They looked at each other, trying to see if the other one had any more information, anything to clear up the confusion. Without words, they knew that the other was just as clueless as them.

"We had no idea." Luke said softly.

Amata removed herself from Luke's embrace. "It doesn't matter now. You've got to escape, or my father's going to kill you both. I have a plan to get you out of here."

"What plan, Amata?" Matthew asked, still lying in bed.

"There's a tunnel. A secret tunnel which starts beneath my father's office. It goes all the way to the front door." She paused. "You'll need to hack the computer to open it. And you'll need someway to open the door to his office." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a gun. "I... I stole my father's pistol. Just in case." She looked sheepish as she held the gun out to Luke.

He took it from her, slowly. It was light, but it made him feel... Powerful. It was like he had power over death itself. He didn't much like the feeling, it unnerved him greatly.

"I'll only use it as a last resort, Amata, I promise." He tried to force a smile.

She nodded slowly in response. "Okay, you've got to go now, I'll meet you there. Watch out for security. And stay safe." She hugged him again, before turning his attention to Matthew.

"Why the hell aren't you up yet?" She asked, shaking in anger. "Can't you see this is serious? People have died, Matt."

Matthew shifted a little in his bed. "I'm naked under here, Amata." He said simply. She blushed slightly, turning away.

"Just get dressed, Matt." Shaking her head as she left the room.

The two brothers hesitated for a moment, unsure of what to do. Luke decided to seize the initiative, he grabbed his jumpsuit and began putting it on. He looked at his brother, still lying in bed.

"You going to get up sometime today?" He asked, irritated.

"Not with you standing there. I need privacy to get dressed." He said, as if Luke had just said something blindingly stupid.

Like sighed and left the bedroom, heading for the medical cabinet in the other room. The were a few supplies inside, Med-X, a couple of Stimpacks, and some bandages, all inside a first aid kit. He took it and held in his hand, the 10mm gun in the other. He looked at the gun, keeping it pointed away from him, as if it would discharge at any moment. He was wary of the power it held, and he didn't like it all that much. He wondered how many times he was going to have to shoot it.

His musings were interrupted by his brother leaving the room. He was carrying a duffle bag which looked to be partially filled. He was running a metal comb through his hair.

"You're worried about how you look?" Luke asked, incredulously, not expecting an answer. "What's in the bag?"

"Stuff." He said, simply. "Clothes and... Stuff." He shrugged, shouldering the bag and stuffing the comb into his pocket. He picked up a baseball bat on the floor. "What now?"

"I guess we leave."

Neither of them moved, worried about what awaited them. "I guess I'll take point." Like said, marching towards the exit.

"Take point?" Matthew asked. "Sure thing lieutenant," he teased.

"Shut up. I'll say what I want to say." Luke blushed as he turned to the right. He froze, "fuck," was all he could say at that point.

Officer Kendall was standing at the end of the hallway, he spotted Luke as he exited the apartment. The officer wore a regular jumpsuit, but with a black armoured chest piece and a black helmet with a plastic faceguard, as well as black leather gloves. The man had a baton in his hand, his eyes narrowed.

"You! You and you're brother are going to pay, you think you can just leave whenever you want, you son of a bitch?" He began walking towards him, baton at the ready.

Luke pointed the gun at him. "Get back, Kendall." He croaked. The officer hesitated for a moment, but simply smiled and kept coming. "I'll shoot you, officer. Don't think I won't." Even as he spoke, Luke knew he was lying. His hands were shaking, he couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger.

Kendall was only a couple of meters away. He raised his baton, "all right, now you'll pay you little-" he was cut off by the baseball bat which struck the side of his helmet, he staggered away, holding his head.

Matthew stood in front of Luke, bat at the ready. "Stay back, Kendall. Or I'll hit you again." The officer looked up at him, fury in his eyes, he charged, a wordless war cry ululating through the hallway. Matthew shoved him backwards with the end of the bat, winding the officer, and then pressed the officer up against the wall with the bat across the man's chest. The man's arms were trapped, he couldn't move. He struggled fiercely, shouting obscenities.

Matthew wasn't sure what to do, now that he had the man trapped. Luke called out to him from the other end of the hallway. "Leave him, just come on." He took off, footsteps echoing down off the walls.

Matthew grabbed the officer, and threw him towards the other wall, he smashed into it and fell backwards in a heap. The man quickly recovered and got to his feet, his hand still gripping the baton.

"You're dead, kid!" The man shouted, flipping up his faceplate.

"Guess what Kendall? Christine puts out!" Matthew taunted.

The officer reacted badly. He charged at Matthew, who simply swung the bat up at him. The wood connecting with the man's chin. Kendall fell backwards, sprawled across the floor unconscious.

* * *

Luke skidded to a halt as he saw Butch run out in front of him. "Please, you gotta help me."

"Oh, Butch. If only you knew what the word 'irony' meant." Luke said, viciously.

"Yeah, yeah. I know how it looks alright? But you gotta help me. My moms in there, there's radroaches." He looked desperate. "I... I can't go back in there, there are roaches and... It's dark and..."

Luke heaved a sigh and pushed past him, entering the apartment. Butch was right: it was dark. He fumbled through the rooms, until he heard a shout.

"Help me!" A woman shouted. Luke heard the chittering of radroaches, he could jus about see them, crawling across the floor. The woman cried out in pain. Luke fired the gun at the floor. The noise stunned him, he hadn't expected it to be so loud. He thought he hit something, but he couldn't see. He fired his gun twice more, recoiling at the noise each time.

There was silence, for the most part. The radroaches weren't making any noise, but Butch's mother was sobbing slightly. Luke decided that the must have either been killed, or driven off by the noise. He quickly stumble out of the apartment.

"You did it!" Butch cried as he saw Luke leave the apartment. "My mom's gonna be okay and you're the best friend I've ever had." His mother stumbled out of the apartment, holding her arm, it was bleeding a little. Butch didn't seem to notice.

"Look, Luke, I know it isn't much," he took of his leather jacket, "but I want you to have this. Go, take it!" He held the jacket out to him. Luke took it sheepishly and tried it on. It was a good fit and it was pretty comfortable.

"Thanks, Butch." He said, but he had already gone back inside with his mom.  
Luke glanced up the corridor as his brother came charging down it, feet slamming against the floor. Luke joined him and they ran together. Thundering down the hallways, the saw some more radroaches, but they ignored the, for the most part.

"Nice jacket," Matthew said, breathing heavily.

"Butch gave it to me." Like responded.

Wordlessly, they continued running down the corridors until the spotted officer Gomez fending off radroaches, baton in one hand, pistol in the other. He had just put a round through one of the bug's heads when he saw the brothers. Matthew readied the bat, remembering Officer Kendall.

Gomez holstered his weapons and held up is hands, showing he meant no harm. "You two are lucky it was me who found you. The others won't be so forgiving." He said. "Look, I don't know what you or your dad did, but I don't want to know, I've got radroaches to deal with here. So go on, get outa here and I'll pretend I never saw you." Gomez turned his head away from them, surveying the dead radroaches.

"As far as I'm concerned, Gomez, you're a murderer, just like the rest of them." Matthew spat as he walked past him into the clinic.

Andy, a Mr Handy robot, hovered into view from behind a metal girder, radroach blood staining his circular saw. "Hello good Sir!" He said in his polite accent. "I believe the good Doctor has gone outside for a spot of air. It's a nice day outside, I imagine."

"Be careful, Luke." Stanley, the chief technician of the vault said, as he came out from behind the robot. "I hope this mess can be cleared up."

Luke made to follow his brother, but Gomez grabbed his arm.  
"Look, kid." The Officer said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm sorry about Jonas, what Mack did to him was... I can't believe the Overseer allowed it, he must be going insane. But you and your brother don't deserve that any more than Jonas did. I don't know what your dad did but..." He sighed and took off his belt, "here, take this." Luke took it from him cautiously, strapping it around his waist. He attached the first aid kit to it, glad to have a free hand. "I hope you find your dad, Luke."

"Thanks, Officer Gomez." He said meekly. "I-"

"No need to thank me. Just go, find your brother. I'll make sure none of the other officers come your way." Luke nodded and moved towards where his brother had gone.

He found him standing in their father's office, duffle bag at his feet. The room was a mess.

"There's nothing here!" He shouted. "Why the hell did he just leave us here to die?" He swung the bat at the computer, smashing it and sending the contents of the desk skittering across the floor. Luke picked up a Vault-Tec Vault Boy Bobblehead Toy an pocketed it.

"I..." He sighed, not knowing what to say.

"Well? What is it, Daddy's boy? Where's he gone?" Matthew asked, pointing the bat threateningly.

"Don't talk to me like that, Matthew." Luke said, too tired to raise his voice.

"Or what, Luke? Huh?" He swung the bat again, it hit a framed quote, shattering it. Luke knew what it had said.

"I am Alpha and Omega. The Begnning and the End. I will give unto him that is a thirst of the fountain of the waters of life freely." He said, quietly.

Matthew looked at him, slightly less angry. "I just don't understand." He shook his head and allowed the bat to drop to his side. He looked at where the passage had been framed, there was a safe behind it. "Great," he said, "more secrets." He tried the lock, entering a random combination, it achieved nothing but an electronic buzz to let him know he failed.

He turned his attention to the belt Luke was wearing. "Going to share those pistols?" He asked, distracting himself from the current situation.

Luke nodded and handed him the gun he was holding. "We'll need to find more ammunition. We only have... A few magazines." Using the new words carefully, he had never used such words frequently.

Matthew shrugged. "C'mon, we should keep going."

The pair continued, walking down more corridors and hallways until they reached the Atrium. Luke couldn't stop himself and careened straight into a fellow vault-dweller, sending them both tumbling to the ground.

"Tom!" A woman shouted, it was Mary Holden. Luke remembered her, she and her husband, Tom, had come to him a few months ago when he was the vault's marriage counsellor.

Tom coughed and rose to his feet. "It's you! You're leaving aren't you?" He asked, looking at the brothers. "We'll, we're coming with you." He looked at his wife; she nodded firmly.

"What? No. You can't we-"

"Why not, Doctor Lightman? You're dad left and now you're leaving. Why can't we?" Mary asked.

"First of all," Luke said "call me Luke, Doctor Lightman is my father." He chuckled bitterly, nobody else did. "And secondly... We're only leaving because the Overseer is trying to kill us. Is he trying to kill you?" Tom shook his head. "Then you shouldn't leave. It's safe here."

As if to simply prove him wrong, two security guards ran out of the hallway at the end of the Atrium. "There they are! Kill them!" One of them shouted to the other. They aimed and started shooting. Tom, Mary, Matthew, and Luke all hot the deck.

"God damn it, Tom. I told you we shouldn't have left the apartment!" Mary shouted at her husband.

"Calm down, Mary." Luke said as a bullet ricocheted off the floor and amsahed a window a floor above. Remember what I told you last November, you're marriage has come so far since-" Matthew hit him on the back of his head.

"Shut the fuck up and shoot back!" He shouted and began firing blindly from behind the pillar.

Luke rubbed the back of his head and drew his pistol. He slipped around the other side of the pillar and dashed along the wall, slipping into an open storage room, going completely unnoticed by the guards, who had taken cover; one behind the doorway, and the other behind an overturned table on the opposite side of the Atrium.

Luke aimed his pistol and fired at the one in the door way. A single shot hit the officer in the arm, he yelled in pain. The other man spotted Luke and began firing at him, Luke ducked behind cover.

The second officer had revealed himself to Matthew, who then unloaded the rest of his magazine on him. Almost all of the shots missed, but one of them was sent through the plastic face plate, tearing a hole through it and spattering the insides with blood - the man fell to the floor in a heap.

The first officer had recovered at this point, ignoring his pain, he began firing on Matthew, who was forced back behind cover. Luke poked his head out once more, aimed, and fired one more shot. It struck the man in the thigh, and he fell to the ground, screaming.

The four vault dwellers remained behind cover, Mary and Tom holding each other in their arms, Matthew crouched beside them, and Luke staring at the wounded security guard in morbid curiosity. A large pool of blood was forming at the door, the man's artery must have been pierced. He would be dead soon, Luke knew. He made no move to help him, but simply stared at the man, as he slowly lost consciousness, forever.

* * *

For almost a full minute, the quartet remained stationary, before Matthew took a few tentative steps out of cover. He approached the nearest corpse, the one he had killed, and picked up his gun. Tom came up behind him.

"Go home, Tom." Matthew said forcefully, pushing the gun into the man's hand. Tom nodded and hurried away, taking his wife by the hand.

He looked at Luke, who was still staring at the body. He ignored him, for the moment, and set about taking the security guard's belt from him. He was glad he couldn't see the man's face for the blood, otherwise Matthew was sure he would vomit, he was almost ready to do so anyway.

Grimly, he tried to pull the guard's body armour off of his body, fumbling with the straps. He looked up as he heard angry footsteps approaching - it was Luke.

"What are you-" He was cut short as the fist connected with his face. He went tumbling to the floor.

"What the fuck was that for?" He cried, holding his face in his hand.

"He's dead!" Luke pointed at the body. "He's dead and you're... Looting him!?"

"He's dead, Luke. We need it more than he does." He picked himself up off the cold metal floor.

Luke stared at his brother for a few moments before saying, "This is wrong."

"What they almost did was wrong." Matthew countered.

"What we did was wrong."

"Only because they were about to do something wrong."

"Does that make us right?" Luke asked.

Matthew shrugged. "That makes us alive." He pointed out. "And this armour will keep it that way." He returned to attempting to remove it from the officer, Luke didn't interfere.

When he eventually managed to get it over his own jumpsuit, he found it was an okay fit, not particularly comfortable around the crotch, however. It restricted his movement a little, but not too much. He then set about taking the man's ammunition and gun, he stuffed them in the duffle bag, which he threw over his shoulder. Then, he decided to deal with his brother.

"Luke," he called out, walking over to him. He placed his hand on his shoulder "come on, we've got to get going." Luke shook his head, tearing his eyes away from the security officer whom he had shot, he noticed his brother's new attire, and looked horrified.

"It was necessary, Luke. We're going to need it. You should take his, too." He thumbed towards the other guard.

Luke returned his gaze to the officer, not wanting to say anything. He began walking towards the body, his finger on the trigger, wary of him coming back to life for revenge.

Slowly, over the course of five minutes, Luke removed the man's armour and put it on. He took the man's ammunition and gun too. Matthew took his helmet, and tossed it into the duffle bag. With a look of disgust upon their faces, both Matthew and Luke continued.

The primary door to the vault exit was locked, they were forced to detour and ascend a flight of stairs towards the Overseer's office. As they came into a maintenance area, they were attacked by another security officer, wielding a baton. He managed to give Luke a nasty bruise on the arm before Matthew smashed him over the head with the baseball bat. The man collapsed to the floor, unconscious. The brothers left him next to the body of an engineer. They both knew that the radroaches would find him, but neither brother wanted to think about that.

As they continued, the boys heard a scream from down the hallway, Luke recognised it instantly, and ran off towards the source, Matthew followed, struggling to keep up.

Luke skidded to a halt and looked through a window. Inside, Amata was strapped to a chair, with the Overseer and a security officer standing over her.  
The Overseer was talking to her, but not looking at her. "Please, Amata. Officer Mack may enjoy this, but I don't. Just tell us where your friends are so we can talk to them."

"He's the one who murdered Jonas," Luke whispered to his brother. Matthew nodded.

Amata was crying, Luke felt a pang of guilt, feeling responsible. "I... I just wanted to help Luke, he had nothing to do with this, I swear!"

"And that's why we need to talk to him, Amata. He and his brother are in danger from the residents, they're angry with Doctor Lightman, and with good reason too. We need to know where the brothers are, so we can help them."  
Amata stayed silent.

The Overseer sighed and turned his head away, "Once more, officer."

Mack swing his baton, hard. It hit Amata across her face, she cried out in pain and continued to cry. Like wasn't willing to stand and watch. He ran for the door, his brother trying and failing to stop him.

* * *

The Overseer turned to face the disturbance, his eyes widened in surprise when he saw Luke charge in and tackle Officer Mack to the ground. He watched the pair wrestle on the ground for a few moments, then reached for his gun. Only to find it missing.

"Looking for this, Alphonse?" Matthew asked him. The Overseer whirled around and saw Matthew pointing a gun at him, a baseball bat was in his right hand. It was the Overseer's gun, Matthew knew; it had the word "Almadovar" written along the side.

"I hope you've come to turn yourself in, Luke." He said, despite the evidence to the contrary. He was projecting a paternal air of authority and ignoring the scuffle going in behind him. It was actually a little intimidating for Matthew.

"I'm Matthew, you idiot." He said. The Overseer looked insulted, but said nothing.

Luke lifted up Mack's face guard and whacked him with his own baton, knocking out a few teeth. He grabbed Mack's gun from his holster and stood up and pointed it at the stunned officer, backing up slowly. Amata remained tied to the chair. Mack slowly got to his feet, holding his jaw.

"That's quite a swing you've got there, kid." He said, as he spat blood on the floor.

"Shut up and stand over there." He motioned with his gun towards a holding cell. Matthew was doing the same to the Overseer.

"You two are already in a lot of trouble, you know. Don't make things worse for yourselves." He said, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Get in the fucking cell, Alphonse." Said Matthew.  
Reluctantly, the Overseer stepped back into the cell, along with Mack. Matthew moved over to the door controls and locked them, he then turned his face away and shot the controls with his pistol, destroying them in a shower of sparks.

"That ought to hold him." He smiled to himself, Luke wasn't listening, he was already untying Amata.

"Luke," she said as she stood and hugged him.

"I'm sorry, Amata. This is my fault, I'm sorry this happened." He said, holding back tears.

"No. It's not your fault. It's my father, he's insane." She glanced in the direction of the cell, the Overseer was staring out of the window, fury in his eyes. Amata's face was bruised, Mack really hadn't held back. Luke found himself disgusted with the Overseer's complete disregard for his daughter's well being.

Matthew spoke. "Don't mean to interrupt you and your girlfriend-"

"She's not my girlfriend." He explained, Amata nodded. "We're just friends."

"Sure thing." Matthew rolled his eyes. "But we need the password to get into the terminal. And I don't think he's going to give it to us." He thumbed in the Overseer's direction.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, I suppose." Luke said, smiling at Amata.

"Okay then, but the bridge is just ahead." He said, adjusting the duffle bag and leaving the room. Luke and Amata followed him.

As the trio entered the room which led to the Overseer's office, they all gasped. In the centre of the room was the broken, lifeless body of Jonas. There was blood everywhere, and his leg was bent in an unnatural way. They all knew he had suffered before he died. Matthew approached the body, and began searching his pockets, Luke and Amata gasped, but he ignored them. Eventually, he found an audio disk in Jonas's lab coat.

He inserted the disk into his pip-boy and waited a few seconds as it buffered.

_"Hold on Jonas, I need to record this first. I... I don't really know how to tell you this. I hope you'll understand, but I know you might be angry. I thought about it for a long time, but in the end I decided it was best for neither of you to know. So many things could have gone wrong and there's really no telling how the Overseer will react when he finds out. It's best if he can blame everything on me. Obviously you already know that I'm gone. It was something I needed to do. You're adults now. You're ready to be on your own. Maybe someday things will change and we can see each other again. I can't tell you why I left or where I'm going. I don't want you to follow me. God knows life in the vault isn't perfect, but at least you'll be safe. Just knowing that will be enough to keep me going."_

_"Don't mean to rush you, Doc, but I'd feel better if we got this over with."_

_"Okay. Go ahead. Goodbye. I love you, both of you."_

The brothers remained silent. Amata broke it. "I'm sorry, really." She said, looking at them both.

Luke looked into her eyes, tears were forming for both of the teens. "I killed somebody, Amata. I shot him and watched him bleed to death. I... I killed him."

He began to sob, Amata started crying too; they hugged each other tightly. Matthew turned away, not wanting to reveal that he was ready to cry as well.

"You did what was necessary, Luke." Matthew said. "He attacked us, he tried to kill us and Tom and Mary. If you hadn't killed him..." He trailed off and ran his free hand through his hair. Luke didn't say anything, he just stood there with Amata.

Matthew walked away, tears slowly streaming down his face. He searched through what he guessed was the Overseer's room, stuffing anything useful into the duffle bag; 10mm ammo, Stimpacks, some bottles of water, spare jumpsuits, etc. the bag eventually became heavy, so he stopped looting. He found a key in the room, he guessed it was for the Overseer's office.

Luke and Amata were waiting for him, having broken their embrace.  
"I found a spare key," he said simply, "lets get the hell out of this place." The others nodded and followed him into the office.

* * *

The office had a large, circular desk in the centre, with a large terminal behind. In front of the desk was a circular window looking out onto the Atrium, Luke walked over to it. Down below, several security officers were gathering, one of them spotted him and pointed, he dived for cover. They all began firing at the window with pistols and sub-machine guns. The glass held for a few moments, but the barrage was too great and it shattered.

The bullets suddenly stopped firing. Luke poked his head out and saw the officers running up the stairs. "We're going to have company." He said. Matthew grunted.

His brother was slaving away over the terminal, attempting to hack into it. Luke took a spare pistol from the duffle bag and handed it to Amata. "Just in case." He said. She swallowed and nodded slowly.

Matthew laughed as he cracked the computer's password and began searching through the files. "What was it?" Amata asked.

He seemed to hesitate for a moment. "It was Amata." He said simply, before returning to work.

Luke looked at his friend, trying to read her face, she seemed sad. "He really loves you." He offered.

She shook her head. "No. He used to love me." She pointed at her bruised face. Luke winced and nodded.

"Jesus Christ..." Matthew muttered.

"What is it?"

"N-nothing. I'll tell you later." He jammed a wire into his pip-boy and began downloading something. Once that was done, he pressed a couple of keys and stepped back.

The Overseer's desk moved, rising upwards, supported by pistons. The stone floor slowly shifted, creating a set of stairs which led down into a dark passageway, a few lights flickered to life.

They stared at the staircase for a while, but were interrupted by the sound of footsteps approaching. The trio ran down the stairs and Matthew flicked a switch at the bottom which caused the desk to lower once more, hiding the fact that they had ever been there. The security officers entered moments after the desk had settled. They quickly moved on, searching for the kids.

The group eventually came to the vault entrance. A massive steel cog blocked the exit. There was a mechanism which would allow the door to be opened hanging in front of it.

"This is it..." Amata breathed.

Luke walked over to the controls and pressed a button. Nothing happened.

"Open it, Luke." Matthew said. He pressed another button. Nothing.

"God damn it Luke, I'll do it myself." Matthew nudged his brother out of the way and pulled down a lever, the room shook with the sounds of machinery. A yellow light began flashing, accompanied by an electric buzz.

The mechanism locked into the cog, and slid it across the floor. An ear piercing screech was heard as it did so. Amata and Matthew covered their ears. Beyond, was dark, stone cavern. At the end was a tiny sliver of light.

There was a banging behind them, and muffled voices.  
"Time to go," said Matthew as he leapt down the small set of stairs and ran for the door.

Luke hesitated. He turned to look at Amata. She looked back. "Go, Luke."

"What about you?" He asked.

She swallowed. "I..."

"What do you think will happen when we leave? There will be chaos! It won't be safe."

"I can help people... I can lead them." She said without confidence.

"But you won't be safe." He said. "Come with us. Come with me." He took a step backwards and held out his hand"

"How could I be any safer out there?"

'Because you'll have me to protect you.' He thought.

"Because Matthew and I will protect you and I..." He trailed off.

She looked at him, expecting him to finish. He didnt. He hung his head and avoided her gaze. He dropped his hand to his side and turned to leave.

"I'm sorry, Luke. But my duty is here, with these people." There were tears in her eyes as Luke looked back at her.

They continued to watch each other as the vault door screeched back into place, closed once more. Even after they had lost sight of each other, they stared at the cold steel until, inevitably, they were forced to leave each other.


	2. Chapter Two: Let There Be Lightmen

Luke was quiet as he stumbled through the cave, trying to follow Matthew's footsteps as they echoed off the cold stone walls. It was difficult, he almost tripped a couple of times, but managed to maintain his composure. The tears in his eyes did not help matters, however.

He realised, as the vault door was closing, that everything would be different, and that he would probably never see Amata again. That hurt him, a lot. He wished, more than anything, that Amata had come with him. Why had she remained in the vault? After what her father had just done to her? Thinking back to the sight of officer Mack hitting Amata made Luke clench his fists in rage.

He continued to brood and think over what had happened in the last few hours as he made his way through the cave. At the end of the cavern was a rickety wooden door with light shining in from the edges. It hurt to look at, physically and emotionally.

"Okay..." Said Matthew, standing in front of the door. Luke stood a foot or so behind him. "This is it." He pushed the door. Dust and splinters of wood fell away as the door screeched open.

The twins stepped out into the light, blinded and unable to see. Their eyes took a few moments to adjust. The scene which greeted them was mind-blowing. The pair walked out of the cave, and stumbled forwards towards a rocky outcropping, which they stood upon and looked at their new world.

"My god..." Luke said as he saw what was once the District of Columbia. It was awful. A wasteland of sand and dirt. Gutted and burnt buildings dotted the distance. Dilapidated transmission towers and collapsing highways marked the horizon. And then, there was Washington D.C.

"Our nation's capital." Breathed Matthew as he spotted the ruins. 'Ruins' was giving it too much credit, neither of them could make out any buildings which looked to have even minor damage, all were wrecked to the point that it was a miracle they were still standing, even the Washington Monument had had a chunk taken out of it, revealing the steel rebar interior. To the left of the monument was a great dome, once it had looked majestic and white, now it was just another blemish on the savage landscape, the Capitol Building.

Desolation. Destruction. Despair. Those were words which came to Luke's mind as he surveyed the wasteland. There was no single word to describe the sight, one needed to use a string of adjectives to even come close to conveying the scene Which confronted him.

To Luke, the sight of this once proud city barely standing, broken and decaying was heartbreaking. A once proud nation had been smashed and wiped away in only a few hours. All of its achievements, its culture, its history: gone. Its people: dead, dying, or forced into savagery. Luke didn't want to be here, but where else could he go? He was almost completely alone now, and for perhaps only the third or fourth time in his life, Luke was thankful for his brother's presence.

The Vault Dwellers starred at the vista from a small overlook which a sign declared to be "scenic." They stared, wide eyed, for at least three minutes, struggling to comprehend this alien world that they had been forced into.

Only after surveying the destruction for a length of time did Luke feel compelled to turn his eyes skywards. He almost collapsed in a fit of vertigo at the sight which confronted him. There was nothing, just the sky. No concrete ceiling, no steel girders, no fluorescent lights, simple grey sky. Luke felt insecure, vulnerable, like he could fall upwards and be lost in space at any moment.

He stumbled away from the scenic overlook and leaned against a rock. For a few moments, he did nothing but gag, then the vomit came. Matthew joined him shortly afterwards, both of them spilling what little food they had in their stomachs into the dirt.

But it wasn't just the agoraphobia which caused his sickness, Luke knew, it dawned on him that he had killed somebody, that he had no home to go to, that he had left Amata in the vault, all alone and probably to be beaten again by an enraged Overseer and his attack dog Officer Mack. The bombardment of emotion and realisation was too much for Luke's near-empty stomach.

The vomiting stopped after a couple of minutes, both of them standing up and wiping away the mess from their faces. They returned to looking at the destruction, silent for a few more minutes.

Luke was the one to break the silence. "What now?" He croaked. The question was almost rhetorical, neither of them knew what to do now. Matthew did not respond, he did not even look at his brother. Wordlessly, they began their descent down a small hill, following a road which lead from the vault entrance to what used to be a small town. All along the road were cars and other vehicles, left abandoned and rusting for two centuries. 'My ancestors must have abandoned them as the fled into the vault,' thought Luke. He tried to imagine himself, driving one of those cars, fleeing atomic fire, but there was no way he could imagine that kind of terror, he knew.

The town they entered was a burnt out wreck, an empty shell of what it once was like the rest of this new world. It's only structures were houses which had no walls, doors, floors, or roofs. For the most part, only the barest skeletal structures and concrete foundations remained, filled with rubble and decaying furniture.

They wandered the town for a while, Luke was content to let his brother lead the way, feeling more than a little apprehensive about his new surroundings. They passed by a few homes, until Matthew decided to explore one of them, so he hopped into the house and began rooting around in the rubble. Meanwhile, Luke walked over to a mailbox and opened it, he took out the contents; a letter which was yellowed and crusty with age. He opened the letter and read it aloud, quietly.

"Dear Mr & Mrs Gomez: Congratulations on your family's recent inclusion in the Vault 101 community!" He looked up at the house, then towards the vault, a flash of recognition came across his face and he burst into laughter. He didn't know why, but the situation was incredibly funny for him.

"What are you laughing at?" Matthew asked, clambering out of the ruined house, dusting himself off.

"Nothing, Matt." Luke said, stifling his joy.

Matthew grunted. "Don't call me Matt, please." He began walking down the street towards a rocket shaped structure which piqued his curiosity.

Luke followed him. "What? Why not?" He asked, tucking the letter into his vault suit and waiting for the response he had heard a hundred times before.

"It's not my name. You wipe your feet on a mat, my name is Matthew." He said firmly.

Luke rolled his eyes. "I don't see what the problem is; other people named Matthew don't seem to mind."

"And how many 'other people named Matthew' do you know?" He snapped.

"None, I admit. But I imagine they wouldn't mind at all."

Matthew said nothing, he simply continued walking, evidently not wanting to have this conversation again. It was a conversation which came up now and again. At first, Luke was simply tired of saying 'Matthew' all the time, 'Matt' was so much simpler. Now, however, he only did it to annoy his brother.

They wandered the town for a while, completely aimless. The wind was tousling their hair, it was a strange sensation for them, though not displeasurable. They eventually came upon a crude sign with an arrow which pointed towards a place called "Megaton." Matthew paused in front of it.

"A town, maybe?" Luke asked, hopeful.

"I've seen that word before..." Matthew mused.

Luke chuckled. "Really? I can't imagine where you've seen the word 'megaton' before. Maybe there was a historical event which happened around here." He waved his arm in the air, gesturing to the ruined town. "Maybe that has something to do with it."

Matthew turned around and shoved him hard, Luke fell backwards a few steps, but just laughed as Matthew returned his attention to the sign. "No. I mean I've seen this sign before." He growled.

Just as Luke was about to question him, he snapped his fingers. "I've got it!" He said as he accessed his pip-boy. "Here, I meant to tell you..."

He moved to stand next to his brother and held out his wrist. On the green screen was a document, apparently taken from the Overseer's terminal. It was a scouting report of the surface world.

"People have left the vault before?" Luke asked.

"Clearly." Said Matthew. "They found an... Well, you can see for yourself." His pip-boy showed an image of a giant insect, the vault dwellers recognised it as an ant, a creature which neither of them had ever seen except in textbooks.

"That doesn't look like the bugs Mister Brotch told us about." Luke mused. "It's a little bigger, for one thing."

Matthew walked away from him, back towards the sign. suddenly cutting off his view of the insect. "The report also says that they found a settlement - Megaton." He pointed at the sign, and then behind him at a large piece of metal which jutted out over a hill.

"That's a town?" Luke asked. "But... It just looks like junk!"

"Says here that it is junk, really. A whole town constructed out of scrap, airplanes and cars and stuff." Matthew smiled. "Let's go." He set off in the direction of Megaton.

"Hold on a minute." Luke said, stopping his brother in his tracks. "Where are we going?"

"Megaton, Luke. Pay attention in future. It's a big town, with people, and buildings, and... Stuff." Matthew scratched the back of his head.

"No. I mean in the long term. What the hell are we doing out here?"

His question was met with stony silence. It occurred to them that they hadn't really thought about what they were going to do. Really, they had no idea.  
"Well... I was thinking we should find dad, get some answers, maybe." He said, avoiding Luke's gaze.

"And then what? What are we going to do? Where are we going to live?"

"We'll cross those bridges when we come to them, Luke." He said, smiling. "Besides, wherever dad's gone, it has to be important, we can probably stay there. Though I wonder what could possibly be more important than me." Matthew asked quietly.

"Somebody's got an ego." He said.

"I mean us; his kids." He said hastily.

Luke shrugged. "Okay, so I guess If Dad went anywhere, Megaton wold probably be his first stop?"

Matthew nodded.

"In the meantime," Luke continued, "if dad isn't in Megaton, where will we sleep?"

Matthew thought for a few moments. "Before the Great War, pewould visiting new cities would stay in hotels."

"I can't imagine that they have a booming tourist industry." He retorted.

"Well... I don't know. Alright? We'll figure something out." He turned and continued heading towards the town, Luke followed, walking alongside him.

* * *

They saw Megaton. It's entrance was a pair of huge, metal plates, perhaps they had once belonged to an aeroplane. The town was enclosed by a tall, rusty, metal wall. It looked rather sturdy.

In front of the gates was a robot of some sort, vaguely humanoid in form. The twins approached the front gates.

"Welcome to Megaton." It said in an electronic monotone. Luke approached it, hoping to engage it in conversation. As he got closer, there was a loud bang, and something impacted into the dirt at his feet, he leapt to the side, landing behind a rusty shopping cart.

"You two! Stay where you are!" A voice called out, Luke took a moment to pin-point it's origin, it was a skinny man above the gate. He held a rifle in his hands, pointed downwards at the vault dwellers. From his poor cover, Luke turned his head to look for his brother, Matthew was lying in the dirt, pistol already drawn.

The two of them remained where they were, obeying the rifleman's orders. Long, awkward minutes passed, the robot repeated its welcome every thirty seconds or so, saying the same thing over and over, it was pretty annoying.

Luke was just beginning to wonder if they should leave when the gates to the town screeched open. They were pulled upwards by some sort of mechanism, sifting up sand and dirt at the same time. Luke pushed himself to his feet, Matthew did the same. The brothers huddled together, the rifleman watched them, and the robot did what it always seemed to do.

From the gates came a black man with a duster, cowboy hat, and somewhat impressive beard, he approached them.

"Well now, I haven't seen one of those jumpsuits in a long time." He maintained a distance from the duo. "Name's Lucas Simms, town sheriff, and mayor should the need arise. I'm not sure why, but I think I like you pair. Something tells me you're both alright. So welcome to Megaton! Just holler if you need anything."

"Pfft. Nice hat, Calamity Jane!" Matthew laughed. The Sheriff did not look impressed.

Luke shoved his brother. "Sorry, Mayor Simms my brother is... Well, he's an ass." He cast a sidelong glance at him. "This looks to be a nice town here. And it's a pleasure to meet you, sir." He extended his hand.

The sheriff smiled and returned the gesture, though he noticeably did not offer his hand to Matthew. "Friendly and well-mannered? I think we're gonna get along just fine. You treat my people fine, don't make any trouble, and you're welcome to stay as long as you like." Luke noticed that the sheriff didn't appear to be addressing Matthew, and a look at his brother revealed that he was rolling his eyes.

"Come on inside, there's been trouble with ants round here recently." Lucas led them into the town and the gates screeched to a close behind them.

* * *

Megaton was bigger on the inside. It was built in a crater, and only a few buildings occupied the lip. One thing which struck Matthew immediate was the cleanliness, which is to say, there was none. Everything was filthy, the air, the buildings, the people, even the dirt seemed dirtier than it should have been.

The other brother noticed this too, but he saw a certain... Rustic (or perhaps 'rusty') charm. There was a clear sense of community, the very existence if the town proved that these people were close to one another. It would take a lot of cooperation to build such a town as this. Matthew did not see this, he simply saw things as they were; filthy and uncouth.

"Is there something I can help you with?" The sheriff asked, adjusting his hat slightly.

Luke looked at his brother, they shrugged at each other. "We're looking for our father. Maybe you've seen him..." Luke tried to think about any distinguishing features he had. "Uh... Middle aged, he had a beard, short brow hair, he'd be wearing a vault suit, maybe?"

"Nope, sorry." He explained, "I've got enough fires to put out that I don't have the time to keep track of every visitor to this town."

"But you're keeping track of us, right? How about I phrase the question differently: Are we the only ones you've shot at today?" Matthew asked, not quite believing Simms.

"That's the way it's gonna be, huh? That's fine. That's just fine." The sheriff glared at Matthew for a few uncomfortable seconds, before turning around and walking away.

"Well done, Matthew. Well done. Good to see you making friends." Luke said.

"Hey, don't blame me. That mans too suspicious, and more than a little strange."

"He's just protecting his town." He replied.

"He's wearing a fucking cowboy hat!" Matthew laughed "And did you see that star on his coat? Who does he think he is?"

"That might be normal here. We don't know, but don't be a dick in future." Luke said, starting to move down the crater, deeper into town. The other one followed.

"I doubt that's normal, even these... People realise that this isn't... I don't know... The Wild West." The people in question seemed to be happy, or as happy as one could be, living in a nuclear wasteland. They talked, bartered, walked with each other. They didn't seem to care about much on the outside world. For the most part, the vault dwellers were ignored, a couple of people cast them a few glances, but nothing more.

"I wonder why the town is called Megaton." Luke mused.

Just then, they saw why. At the bottom of the crater was a large, almost comically sized bomb. It sat right in the centre of town, in a small puddle of water. A man was standing next to it, arms outstretched, shouting something, neither of the brothers could make out what he was saying.

The two were quiet for a while, just staring at the weapon, not really sure how to react, Matthew broke the silence first. "Okay, I take it back. None of these people are right in the head. They're fucking crazy." Matthew pointed at the bomb. "That's a fucking nuclear bomb!"

"I noticed." Luke replied. "But its not our business how they... Decorate their town. We should ignore it. Better yet, we should offer to help."

"Help with what? I mean, besides the bomb in the centre of town, what could we help them with?"

Like turned to look at his sibling. "How about disabling the bomb?"

"That's a great idea!" Matthew rolled his eyes. "Because I forgot how the vault marriage counsellor had to learn how to defuse two hundred year old atomic weaponry."

"What about you? You were a technician." He said defensively.

"Hell no." He said adamantly. "I don't want a dose of instant sunshine to my face. I'm not going near that thing. Besides, I fixed pipes and pip-boys, I wouldn't know what to do to disarm a nuke."

"Okay, so we avoid the bomb. What do we do?"

"Alcohol. We need to find someplace which serves alcohol." Matthew said.

"Um... It's a little early..." Luke said, confused.

"No, not for me. I just figure that all the sane people, those who are actually concerned about the damn bomb which could blow up in their faces at any moment, will be drinking themselves into a stupor so they don't have to think about being atomised, if they haven't already led town, that is." He began scanning the buildings, looking for something which might resemble a bar.

"That's... Not a bad line of reasoning." Luke conceded.

Matthew looked at him and smiled. "Of course it's not." He nudged his brother in the ribs with his elbow. "Let's go, I think that place up there looks promising." He pointed to a building perched on the edge of the crater, it was a small, quite inconspicuous building, except for the sign which advertised it as a saloon.

They made their way up to the saloon by way of a metal ramp, at the top of the first ramp, they came across the a building with what appeared to have once been the front part of an airplane perched on top of the building, which was rather small. Along the top of the nose was the word "Supply" written in big letters which stuck out the top at awkward angles. Above the door (which also looked like it may have been taken from an aircraft) were the words "Craterside Supply" scrawled in white paint.  
"Looks nice. Should we go in?" Luke asked.

"Why?"

"To... Buy stuff." Luke realised his mistake as soon as he said it.

"We don't have any money, Luke." Matthew said, disapprovingly. "Come to think of it... Do these people have money? What do they use?" Vault 101 didn't have any official currency, everybody was given ration tokens with which to buy food and other necessities. That said, various items which weren't considered necessities, such as books and some other things, were traded for amongst the residents.

Luke shrugged. "Maybe old, pre-war coins? Metal is still valuable, I imagine."

"We don't have any pre-war coins though." He pointed out.

"True, but we have guns in the duffle bag," he pointed to the bag, which Matthew still had swung across his shoulder, "we could sell those, maybe?"

Matthew didnt say anything, he simply reached for the door to the store.

Inside, the lighting was quite dim, but sunshine streamed in through the windows in the ceiling. The brothers could see the dust floating through the warm air.

A tall, tanned man was leaning against a wall to their left, he eyed them suspiciously. A redhead woman was standing behind a counter to the right of the door. Behind her was a vault 101 suit, though it looked tattered, filthy, and worn, and it had had a few modifications; there was a sheet of metal on the left shoulder and some belts and harnesses criss-crossing the suit.

The woman spoke to them, "well hi there, I'm Moira Brown, and this is Craterside Supply!"

Matthew found the woman to be unsettlingly cheery. "Uh, hi." He gave a small wave. "I'm Matthew and this is my brother, Luke. We're, uh... We're from a vault." He said sheepishly.

"Ooh!" She shrilled, "I haven't seen one of you guys in years! And now look, two come along at once! How weird."

"Yeah..." He forced a smile.

"We'll, seeing as you two are fresh out of the vault, there's probably a lot you should know about the Wasteland, like the various dangers that can be encountered!"

"Yeah, um..." Luke interrupted. "That's great, but first... What do you use as money?"

"Oh! We use old bottle caps!" She smiled.

The brothers looked at each other. "Bottle caps?" They asked simultaneously.

"Yep." She opened her till and pulled out a handful of bottle caps, mostly Nuka Cola, but there were a few caps from other drinks which neither brother recognised. Matthew suppressed a laugh. All the bottle caps in the vault were recycled, but a couple of the vault dwellers collected them, Matthew wondered just how rich they would be if they were out here.

"Okay. We'd like to sell you some guns for some bottle caps." He swung the duffle bag from his shoulder and onto the floor before opening it up.

"Christ... How much crap have you got in here Matthew?" Luke said as he kneeled down next to the bag.

The bag was filled with a lot of stuff. On the top were two 10mm pistols and a vault 101 security helmet. Beneath that, there were a lot of clothes, at least four jumpsuits, a lot of underwear, and a baseball cap from what he could see. There was also a baseball, a basketball, and a BB gun. Probably more stuff beneath all that too.

"I didn't know what to pack. I panicked." He said.

"So you decided to bring along the entire vault?"

"Ooh! That was a very smart thing to do!" Moira chirped.

Matthew looked up at her, unable to tell of she was serious, she looked like she was. Slowly, Matthew took out the pistols and the combat helmet and placed them on the counter.

"How many caps for these?" He asked.

"And these." Luke put the BB gun and the balls on the counter too.

Matthew reached for the baseball and took it off the counter and tossed it back into the bag. "I've had this since I was ten. I'm not selling it without a good reason."

Luke said nothing.

* * *

When they were done selling their stuff, the brothers had a small sum of caps. Even better, Moira offered to "improve" their vault suits for them for free, so they left her with two of the spares and were told to return the next day. Satisfied, they left Craterside Supply.

"What did you think of her?" Luke asked as they made their way towards the saloon.  
"She's obviously a little... Unhinged." Matthew replied.

"My thoughts exactly."

When they entered the saloon, Luke was a little disappointed, he had hoped that the place would have been filled with people who could be questioned about their dad. As it was, there were only a handful of patrons seated at tables around the saloon. A radio at the bar played static. It was dark, with only a few very weak lightbulbs providing a little light, though sunlight streamed in through the crude metal walls.

The brothers approached the bar, hoping to find somebody important to speak too, maybe even the "Moriarty" whose name was in the door. There was somebody behind the bar, but they were in the floor, concealed from few, grumbling about something.

"Excuse me," Luke said, catching the bartender's attention.

A man, or at least so etching which looked a little like a man, stood up from behind the bar. His face was more than a little unnerving. He had almost no skin, just a few blackened strips here and there. His flesh was red and pink and yellow and puce. His muscles and bones showed through in places devoid of flesh. His eyes were perhaps one of the most discomforting thing about him, they were purple and grey with clear blue irises, but Luke couldn't quite tell just what was keeping them in place. The eyelids were tattered, when the man close them, he could probably still see. And the flesh around the eye sockets was sunken and shrivelled. It looked as though they could fall out at any time. He had no nose whatsoever, merely nostrils with strips of flesh covering them. His hair was almost gone, except for a few greasy black tufts.

When Luke saw him, he stiffened, resisting the urge to recoil. Matthew was not so restrained. "Gah! Fuck! What the fuck are you!?" He shouted and stumbled backwards from the bar, drawing the attention of a few other people.

"What is it smoothskin?" The man's voice was gravelly, like he had been a chain-smoker for forty years. "Never seen a ghoul before?" He looked neither surprised nor insulted by Matthew's violent reaction.

"Is... Is that what you are?" Luke asked, resisting the urge to touch the man's face.

"So... You haven't seen a ghoul before?" He addressed Matthew, who shook his head in response, eyes wide. The ghoul looked at their jumpsuits. "Vault dwellers huh? From that vault out near Springvale? I see." The ghoul sighed. "I'm a ghoul. I look like this because I was young and stupid and spent too much time around radiation. That's it. I won't eat your brains or anything. Not yet, anyway."

'How is he even alive?' Luke thought to himself and he wondered what he had meant by 'not yet.' "It's good to meet you..." Luke trailed off.

"Gob." He said.

"It's good to meet you, Gob." Luke held out his hand.

Gob eyed it suspiciously, before cautiously shaking it. The handshake was brief; Gob broke off quickly, but Luke would have done so anyway if the ghoul didnt do it first. The hand felt weird. Luke had expected it to be wet and fleshy, but it was dry and bony, Luke could feel Gob's finger bones, his muscles moving beneath the flesh. It was disturbing, but Luke made no sign of his displeasure.

Cautiously, Matthew returned to the bar, though he didnt extend his hand. "I'm sorry for what I said, Gob, you just... Startled me, that's all."

"S'okay smoothskin." He said, making an expression which the brothers thought resembled a smile. "Can I get you anything?"

Just as Luke was about to answer, a woman walked up behind Matthew. She was a redhead, with soft looking skin wearing revealing clothing, especially revealing around her chest. She put her arms around Matthew's shoulders, "Well, well, well, what have we here?" She said, her voice was like velvet. "Why don't we get a room, hon?"

Matthew disentangled himself and turned to face her, looking her over. "Uh..." He said As she wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Great." She said, "only one hundred twenty caps and I'm all yours."

"Wait, what? I have to pay you?" He asked. Luke's face fell into his hand.

"She's a prostitute, Matthew." Luke said, face still planted in his hand.

"What? You think I asked because of your looks?" She laughed and walked away. "Come back to me when you feel like becoming a real man, kid."

Matthew was stunned, "What's wrong with my looks?" He brought his hands to his face, feeling his nose.

Luke ignored him and addressed Gob. "So, we're looking for our father, middle aged guy, kind of pale, looks a little like us, fresh out of a vault. Seen him?"

Gob looked at the vault dwellers, and for a second, Luke thought he saw a flash of recognition in those irradiated eyes, the look quickly disappeared, however and Gob began wiping the bar with a rag.

"Sorry kid, can't help ya. Talk to Moriarty." He said, avoiding Luke's gaze.

"Well then, where is Moriarty?" Matthew asked, having ceased touching his face.

"He's in the back, should be out in a minute. In the mean time, can I get you a drink?"

The brothers looked at each other, Luke's stomach growled. Neither of them had eaten at all today, and they had already thrown up what little food they had had in their stomachs.

"Do you serve food?" Luke asked.

"Yeah. It's not good food, but I'll tell you what," he leaned in closer, looking over his shoulder "I'll get you a couple of our best meals, half off, seeing as you haven't hit me or yelled at me for looking like a corpse." He smiled again and looked at Matthew. "Except that one time, but I forgive you."

"Thanks, Gob." Matthew said.

"Okay, two radroach specials coming right up." He waltzed off to the rear of the building, towards a refrigerator.

"Did he say radroach?" Luke looked at his brother, concerned.

A few moments later, Gob returned and set a couple of plates and some forks down in front of them. On the plates was a dead radroach, turned onto its back with its carapace having been cut open for ease of access. The bug looked slightly roasted, Luke just stared at it while Matthew gave Gob the caps.

Luke was horrified to find his brother tucking into the insect, pulling open the carapace with his hand and stabbing at the meat inside

"What the hell are you doing?" He whispered so as not to offend Gob, who was banging on a radio set at the other end of the bar.

"Eating, Luke. I'm eating." He shoved a forkful of meat into his mouth and started chewing. "You should try some, it's even better out here than in the vault."

"You've eaten this before?" He asked, abhorred.

"I'm a technician, we spend a lot of time in the tunnels. It's fun to hunt the roaches. And you wont believe how hungry you can get while fixing water pipes." He shovelled another forkful into his mouth and chewed slowly. "Stanley showed me how to cook them last year." He said with his mouth full. "It's an initiation ritual the techies have; you have to hunt, cook, and eat a roach. It's actually pretty fun." He swallowed and chortled, reviewing old memories.

Luke stared at the meal, he looked up, Gob was staring at him expectantly. Reluctantly, Luke smiled at him and stabbed the meat with his fork. He pulled out a chunk of meat. Slowly, he brought it to his mouth and plopped it down on his tongue. His immediate reaction was to retch, but he suppressed it. The taste wasn't actually that bad, better than most of the vault's processed food, at least. He continued his meal, smiling the whole time and chewing eagerly. He could get used to this.

* * *

After a short while of eating, a grey haired man entered the bar from a back room. Matthew guessed it was Moriarty. He stood up, leaving his brother to eat, and approached the man.

"Moriarty, I presume?" He asked.

"Yeah, whaddaya want, kid? I'm Colin Moriarty, and this is my saloon." He asked in an accent which was unfamiliar to Matthew. The man had grey hair and a goatee, it was combed back. His grey eyes matched his hair. He looked rather imposing, though Matthew was taller than him.

"I'm... We, I mean," he pointed to his brother, who was still feasting on radroach, "are looking for our father: middle aged guy, name's James. Have you seem him?"

Moriarty's eyes widened in surprise and recognition. "Jesus fer the love o' me..." The man squeked. "It's you! Both of you! The little squalling brats, all grown up. Oh how time flies..." He laughed. "It's been a long time kid."

"We... Haven't met before...?" He said, it was a half question and half statement.

"Oh, yer dad passed through here, all right. Here and gone. Got what he came for and left. I'm assumin' ye'll do the same, correct? Just like when you were a little baby boy, crying yer eyes out in the upper floors of this very building. Kept me awake at night, too."

"I... My father and I were born in Vault 101..." He said, apprehension growing.

Moriarty laughed loudly, drawing other people's attention, not including Luke, who continued to chew on his food. "Is that what your father told ya? That he was born in that place? That you two were born in there as well? Oh," he said, his laughter rescinding, "the lies we tell to those we love..." He grew silent for a few moments, as though pondering something. Matthew was dumbstruck with silence.

He deemed it fit to explain. "Yer father brought you to Vault 101 not long after ya were born. To keep ya safe ye see. I remember it well; ye stayed in my saloon after all." He scratched his beard absent mindedly. "It's true. Yer father, his Brotherhood 'o Steel friend, yer brother, and you, the sucklin' babes with nary a tit to suckle."

Matthew was agape, he didnt know what to say. Why would Moriarty lie to him? He could only be telling the truth.

"Ah, well, life goes on, eh? Daddy lied. Life's full 'o little disappointments. And now, here ya are, wonderin' where he's gotten to." Moriarty chuckled again.

"No... it can't be..." he said. His mind was reeling, he felt like he had just been punched in the face.. He didnt understand why Moriarty could gain by deception, and, in some small ways, he believed the man.

"Ahh, I see... I heard about the brainwashin' that goes on down there. From some other fella, escaped about, oh, five years back."

"The vault hasn't been opened in years!" He said, it came out mostly as a whine.  
Moriarty raised his hands up,"All hail the Overseer! We're born in the vault, we die in the vault! And all that other assorted lunacy. Kid, you've got better programmin' than our own Deputy Weld. Better wise up. Wouldn't want anyone... takin' advantage of ya now?"

Matthew was starting to believe him. And now he was angry at his dad for abandoning him and lying to him. "Where is my father, I need to find him, please." He said firmly, without emotion.

Moriarty crossed his arms and shifted his weight to another leg. "Ye seem like a nice kid, so I'm goin' to be straight with ya. Yer dad was here, and now he's not. And yes, I know where he went. Had a little chat with him. But what yer askin' me for is information, and information is a commodity, as far as I'm concerned."

"How much?" Matthew asked, eager for an answer.

"Let's say... Two hunnerd caps, and dear daddy's location is yours. A reasonable offer, if I do say so myself." Moriarty smiled.

Matthew growled "I don't have that much money."

"Alright then kid, lemme help ye out. Ya know, for old time's sake and all, if ya don't have the caps to pay for the information, maybe ye can do me a little favour."

"What do you need doing?" He asked.

Moriarty smiled. "That was easy. I thought ye'd need some convincin' first." He clasped his hand to Matthew's shoulder, speaking quietly. "There's this junkie bitch named Silver who burrowed a buncha caps from me. Claimed she could start funneling jet and psycho to me at a good price. Problem is she ran off with the caps and set herself up in Springvale so she could inject herself into a stupor. Get those caps offa her and they're yours. Yours to pay me with anyway." He chuckled to himself.

"Consider it done, Moriarty." He growled.

"Wonderful!" The man said, shaking Matthew's hand. "I hope you pull through, kid, because I'd really like to help ya."

Matthew freed himself of the man's grasp and returned to his seat with a sigh.

"You going to eat that?" Luke said, pointing his fork at the meal.

"I've lost my apettite." He slid the plate towards his brother. "I don't know where dad is yet, but I'll find out, I just have to do something for Moriarty first." He said.

Luke looked up at him, slightly concerned. Matthew shook his head, "Don't worry about it, Luke. I'll deal with it, you stay here, find something to do. Make friends or something." He stood up and tightened his belt. "I'll do it now. Don't forget the bag when you leave. And don't try to disable that bomb, I'd hate for this place to be a crater when I get back... Well, a bigger crater than this place already is anyway." At that, he left the saloon, leaving Luke alone to the roach meat.


	3. Chapter Three: A Super Duper Day

Matthew spotted what he assumed to be Silver's house ahead. He made the assumption based on the fact that it was one of the only houses in the town which wasn't a complete wreck. It was only a single story building, but it did not look out of place in the town, being just as dilapidated as the rest, with paint peeling off the walls and tiles falling off the roof. Slowly, he strolled over towards it, considering his options.

He wasn't quite sure how he was going to get the money from Silver, simply asking politely probably wasn't going to do it. He decided that he'd make it up as he went along when he finally reached the front door. Rather than knock, he simply tried the handle. It was open. He pushed inwards, slowly, the door squealing all the while.

It was dark inside, but he could still see. The room he found himself in was rectangular, with a filthy looking bed in the corner. The floor was some sort of linoleum, though it was cracked and covered in stains. Cautiously, Matthew entered the house, fingering his pistol. Ahead of him was another door which seemed to lead into a kitchen, if the shadowy refrigerator was anything to go by.

He froze as a woman stepped out from the kitchen. Matthew could tell that, at one point, she had been very pretty, her hair was very light blonde, almost like silver, which is where he assumed she got her name. Her face was nicely shaped. Indeed, if it had been darker, she could probably have been mistaken as beautiful. Alas, Matthew could quite clearly see all of her features.

The woman had a haggard face, with bags beneath her eyes and wrinkles well ahead of her natural time. Her silver hair was thick with grease and dirt, all matted and twisted. Her bare arms were skinny, unhealthily so, and they were covered in red markings and splotches.

Even her voice was uglier than it should have been. "Whaddaya want?" She demanded, the sound was coarse, like she hadn't drank anything in days. Her words were slurred too. Clearly, she had been taking something.

"Moriarty sent me." Matthew said, simply. "He wants the caps you owe him."

A look of fear crossed her ugly face. "Get out!" She screamed, startling Matthew. "I said get out!" A glass bottle flew at him, he ducked and it shattered somewhere behind him. Silver retreated into the kitchen. Matthew followed, hoping to calm her down.

As he entered the kitchen, he saw Silver, standing there, lit up by the sunlight streaming through the boarded up windows, dust swirling around her. She had a gun in her hands, a revolver, and it was pointed at Matthew.

"I'm sorry." She said. Matthew ducked to the right as she pulled the trigger, a hole appeared in the wall behind where his head had been. He quickly pulled out his own gun.

"Silver, I don't want to hurt you," he poked his head back into the kitchen, quickly retreating again as she fired another shot. Matthew got the feeling she wasn't going to negotiate as she started screaming at him, shouting obscenities, and firing more bullets.

He found himself growing angry. "You better calm down before I put you down you dumb, stupid, junkie-" he was interrupted as Silver came running through the doorway, knife in hand, curses in mouth. She slashed down at him at him, narrowly missing his chest, Matthew stumbled backwards, falling onto the floor.

Silver flipped the knife around in her hand, preparing to stab him again. He quickly raised his gun, supporting himself on his left elbow, and fired two rapid shots in succession. One of them struck her in the chest and she fell backwards, knife skidding across the floor.  
Matthew simply lay on the dirty, cold, hard flooring for a few moments, thinking about what he had just done, he quickly pushed those thoughts aside and picked himself up, holstering his pistol.

He looked around the room, ignoring Silver for now, and began searching for bottle caps. He found a bottle of Rad-X, which he stuffed into his pocket, but not much else. He slowly entered the kitchen, still not looking at the body, unwilling to see what he had done just yet. He began rooting through the drawers and cabinets. He found a wicked looking knife with a serrated edge which he stuffed inside his belt as well as a medical kit, which he looted thoroughly for Stimpacks and bandages, and a box of ammunition, presumably for Silver's pistol. But he couldn't find any caps.

As he searched a cabinet, looking at the small amount of food stored within, he heard a scream of rage. Quickly turning in the sound's direction, he saw Silver jumping at him. She wrapped her legs around his torso and began scratching and punching at his face. He screamed in pain as he tried to throw her off. After only a few seconds, he threw himself against the refrigerator, toppling it and sending both he and Silver tumbling to the ground.

He reached for his pistol, but in his dazed, confused state of mind found the handle of the baton instead. Seeing that Silver was getting ready to pounce again, he made the best of it and drew the weapon. As she lunged at him once more and straddled his body, he swung the baton upwards at her head, it impacted against her jaw, sending her sprawling, face down, to the floor, blood everywhere. Matthew stood up quickly and moved over to her, he hit her again on the back of the head. He hit her again. And again. And again. And again.

She stopped moving, a large pool of blood forming around her shattered skull. He dropped the baton and turned to look at himself in a cracked, dusty mirror. He looked... Monstrous. His face, his hair, his clothes were coated in blood, not just Silver's. His face was covered in scratches. He threw up, small chunks of food seemed to be part of the vile mixture. Quickly, he searched Silver's body, resisting the urge to retch, rifling through her pockets and finding a small felt bag which chinked as he moved it. There was a sizeable number of caps within.

He exited the kitchen and entered the front room, whereupon he fell to his knees and retched. "I had to." He said to himself. "I had to do it." He grabbed the bottle of purified water hung had on his belt and fumbled with the cap, trying to wash the blood from his hands and face. He wasted an entire bottle of tporcelain water, but his face was still bloody.

He forced himself to his feet, leaving the bottle on the floor, and stumbled towards the door. He leaned against it for a few moments, focusing on his breathing, trying to calm himself, before opening the door and stepping out into the sunlight.

As he exited the building, his heart jumped. Two people, a man and a woman, were standing just beyond the exterior fence, one held a baseball bat, the other, a rifle. They were clothed in what could only be described as scrap, hastily assembled into armour. The man wore part of a tire across his chest, going from his left shoulder to his waist. The woman, only identifiable as such due to her bosom, wore what looked like a mask used by welders, only now it served as some sort of helmet.

"Well lookit we got here!" The woman shrilled. "Somebody have a little accident?" She laughed, the man joined her.

"He's mine now." Said the man as he raised the rifle lazily.

Thinking quickly, Matthew raised the pistol and pulled the trigger, he kept doing so until the man was dead, at least four bullets having embedded themselves in his chest, neck, and stomach.

The woman screamed, seemingly more out of rage than grief, and charged at Matthew. Realising his gun was now empty and having no time to reload, he threw it at the woman. It struck her helmet, knocking her off balance, allowing Matthew to dodge her attack and pull out the knife he had found.

Not letting her resume her attack, Matthew plunged the knife into the woman's back, tearing through a thin sheet of metal and ripping her flesh. He pulled the blade out and heard as the serrated edge did its job: more flesh was torn. The woman unleashed a scream of pain as she fell to the ground. Stepping back from the scene, horrified, Matthew picked up his gun, grabbed the dead man's rifle, and ran, leaving the woman to die alone.

He kept running until he was in sight of Megaton, the sniper watched him approach and raised his rifle when he saw him, wary of pursuers. Matthew merely waved him off as he slowed and approached the gates.

* * *

Luke stepped out of the water plant, bag of tools in hand. He had already spotted one of the leaks earlier, he decided to leave that one 'till last.

He wandered around town, walking up and down the rusted ramps, scanning for any leaks he could find. As he passed by Craterside Supply for the third time, he spotted one. It was down one level. The pipe ran across the roof of a building, and then ran across to another building. The leak was in between the buildings, with a fall of several meters below.

Luke sighed and considered his options. On the one hand, he could wait for Matthew to return, together they could lower one of them down, fix the pipe, and then pull them back up. Matthew also had a better idea of how to actually fix pipes.

On the other hand, Luke could simply jump down, work his magic on the pipe, and clamber back up. There was no telling how long Matthew was going to be anyway. And he'd like to be able to assert his independence from his brother. Then again, he had no idea how to go about plugging the leak. It was an easy decision.

Leaving the duffle bag on the floor at his feet, Luke climbed over the short barrier fence and allowd himself to fall onto the roof below. He landed in a heap. 'That could have gone better,' he thought as he dragged himself towards the leaking pipe. The pipe in question was constructed of scrap, just like the rest of the town. He mounted the pipe, throwing his legs across either side, and began shuffling along the metal, out into the open air.

The leak seemed to have sprung from where two scraps of metal had been torn apart. Fumbling with the tool bag, Luke rooted around for something which might be useful. His hand found a hammer.

Not knowing what else to do, Luke whacked the pip, creating a deep, clang and causing the pipe to vibrate. The leek stubbornly refused to subside. He raised the hammer again in preparation to strike once more, but the hammer slipped from his grasp, tumbling towards the ground below. Luke saw it impact with a thud, creating a small cloud of dust.  
"Watch it, kid!" One of the settlers who had narrowly avoided being brained by the tool called out to him.

Luke blushed and looked away, searching for another tool. He found a strip of scrap metal, which he placed over the leak, it seemed to do the job okay. To fix it in place, he wrapped half a roll of duct tape around the pipe, securing it firmly. Proud of his work, Luke shuffled back along the pipe to the building. He climbed back up to Craterside Supply and retrieved his duffle bag.

He found another pipe by the common house. Using the same technique, he affixed a piece of scrap metal to the pipe and used the remainder of the duct tape to secure it in place. Further pleased, he set off in the direction of Megaton's entrance to deal with the first leak he had spotted. He noticed that the sky was changing colour, turning to an orange-pink, it looked very beautiful and exotic. He admired it as he made his way along.

* * *

Matthew slowly dabbed his face with the alcohol, it stung, but it was probably better to be safe than sorry. He had cleaned himself up a little, sitting by a bar called the Brass Lantern. The owner, Jenny Stahl, had only charged him a couple of caps for a small basin, but many more for the vodka.

Just as he was finished and tracing his fingers along the grooves which Silver had left in his face, he saw his brother pass by, a stupid grin on his face. He was heading towards the entrance of the town, tool bag in hand.

'This ought to be good,' he thought as he began to follow him.

He trailed his brother until he came close to the entrance of the town, whereupon Luke came to a stop and crouched by a scrap metal pipe which had sprung a leak. Matthew watched, bemused, as his brother set about trying to fix it. Luke affixed a piece of metal over the leak and rooted around in the tool bag for a while, before growling in frustration. He took out a wrench and began beating the metal, causing a ruckus which attracted attention.

Matthew walked over to him and snatched the wrench from his hands. "You'll make it worse, you idiot." He said as look turned to face him, startled.

"You're back!" He said, seemingly surprised. "You look, uh..." He trailed off, motioning towards his face.

"Don't want to talk about it," he snatched the tool bag from his brother's hands and began working on the pipe. Luke watched in silence as Matthew began affixing the scrap in a more professional way. By the time he was finished, one could hardly tell that the pipe had ever needed repairs at all.

Matthew stood up. "So, while you've been playing plumber, I've been... Doing a job for Moriarty. Now he'll tell us what he knows about dad."

Luke threw the duffle bag over his shoulder and took the tool bag from Matthew. "Okay. You go see Morairty, I'll tell Walter that I'm finished."

"Walter?"

"The water guy." He shrugged.

The two went either separate ways again, one to the water plant, one to the saloon.

* * *

Matthew saw Moriarty out in front of the saloon, leaning on the railing. He approached him.

"Well, it appears yer back." He said, without looking. "Got my money, kid?"

Matthew took out the leather bag and tossed it to Moriarty, who snatched it from the air and weighed it in his hands. "Feels about right." He muttered.

"Now, tell me what you know, Colin." Matthew spat.

"Alright, kid, alright." He paused and took a deep breath. "Yer dad came to me, wanted to know about the Wasteland, who all the movers and shakers were. I admit, I don't know much on the topic, so I pointed him in the direction of Galaxy News Radio, in the DC ruins."

"Galaxy News?" Matthew asked.

"It's run by a man named Three Dog, pretty entertainin' actually, signal's been shit lately though..." He scratched his beard thoughtfully. "He broadcasts outa the ruins, holed up against the super mutants."

"Okay. So how do I reach Galaxy News?"

"Beats me, kid." He said as he returned his gaze to the town.

Matthew was frustrated, he had expected more information, a couple of questions came to mind.

"What's a... Supermutant?" He quizzed. Moriarty looked at him, and smiled.

"You got a lot to learn, kid. It's a big, bad Wasteland out there. So listen up." He spat over the edge and turned to face Matthew again. "Okay, so, basically, they're big, green monsters who kill and kidnap people. They tend to lurk around the ruins, but we had a few of them out this way once, a couple years back; ugly bastards." Matthew stared at him, taking all the information in. "Brotherhood o' Steel keeps them in check, tryin' ta clear the ruins y'see."

"What's the Brotherhood of Steel?"

He sighed. "It's a group of people in the ruins. They wear power armour, and stalk around the place, operating outta their citadel, by the river. They try to keep the ruins clear of mutants. Not doing a good job of it, if I'm honest."

Matthew nodded. He had more questions, but suspected that the novelty of answering them had worn off for Moriarty. He left to find his brother.

He found him coming along the walkway, sans toolbag.

He smiled. "I got us a hundred caps. Now what? Where's dad gone to?"

Matthew rubbed the back of his neck as he came to a stop. "In the ruins. He's gone to find some radio station or something."

"Why?"

He shrugged. "Wanted to know about the wasteland."

Luke thought for a moment. "If Moriarty had just told us, we could have caught up to him by now. He was only a couple of hours ahead of us anyway." He said bitterly.

"But we don't know where Galaxy News is located - that's the name of the radio station, by the way."

Luke nodded, reluctantly. "So how do we find the station?"

"We'll probably need a guide. Maybe somebody in Megaton can help. In the meantime," he looked at his pip-boy, it read 21:36, "it's dark already, we need to find somewhere to sleep. Any ideas?"

"Well, Moriarty's place rents out beds. But there's only one bed and you need to... rent Nova... at the same time." He looked disgusted. Matthew was too, he didn't want to give any more money to that man. "But I hear there's a common house. People just, fall into bed there. People who aren't permanent residents."

"Okay, we'll go there." Matthew stepped aside, motioning for Luke to lead the way.

* * *

Luke kept his eyes closed, not wanting to face the day ahead. He was in a strange state of sleep; he was dreaming, but he was aware of the fact, and he was aware of other people in the waking world near to him, moving around and talking. He stubbornly refused to rise, trying to keep his dream close.

_Wake up! You've got to wake up!_

"Amata? What's going on?" He mumbled to himself

_It's your dad. He left the vault. I've got to wake your brother._

"Brother..." He muttered.

He jerked awake as something slapped him on the cheek, hard. "Rise and shine, Luke. It's nine o'clock. I would have woken you earlier, but I felt you maybe deserved a rest. That stops from now on, though; early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."

Luke looked up and saw Matthew staring over him, grinning - he always had been a morning person. Luke lifted his head up from the pillow and wiped his face with the back of his hand. He had been drooling again.

"Christ, that's disgusting." Matthew commented, seeing the drool. "Anyway, we've got some work to do today."

"Work?" He asked groggily.

"I've been to speak with Moira, she's got out vault suits ready, but she wants a little something done in return."

"What is it? What kind of work?" He fell back onto the pillow, closing his eyes.

Matthew grabbed his tee and pulled him up again. "She's writing a book, wants us to do a little research, we're going to a place called the 'Super Duper Mart' for some food."

Luke allowd himself to be pulled up, before steadying himself on his feet. He began looking for his jumpsuit, struggling to pull it on. "Grocery shopping? And where is my armour?" Noticing that the security vest was missing.

"Moira has it. She's got mine too." He shrugged, "Now come on, lets go." He sauntered off in the direction of the door. Luke stumbled after him, wiping the sleep from his eyes.

It was a nice day, or so Luke assumed, he had only seen one other day, after all. The sky was less grey, there was some blue visible, and the sun was warm on his skin. As they walked through the town, Luke looked at the other Caucasian inhabitants of Megaton, their skin was not like his. It ranged from olive to brown to a burnt red, while he was pale. He assumed that would change over time as he spent time in the sun. But at the moment, he felt conspicuous.

When they entered Craterside Supply, Moira squealed in delight. "You're back! Fantastic! We can get to work on the foreword right away!"

She grabbed a notepad and pen and began staring intently at the brothers.

Matthew cleared his throat. "Wow! This 'outside' place is amazing! In the main room, I can't even see the ceiling!" Luke looked at his brother in surprise, shaking his head in disapproval. Matthew looked to him and winked.

"Yeah, you can't imagine how hard it is to change that big lightbulb up there!" She trilled happily. "Now, when you get to the Super Duper Mart, remember, people need food and medicine, bring a little of it back to me as proof."

Matthew nodded. "Alright, Moira, we'll bring back the stuff."

"Great!" She said. "Now, I've got presents for you two!" She retreated behind the counter and opened up a locker.

She withdrew what Luke could identify as a vault suit, but it had a lot of modifications. There were leather straps crossing the torso in an X shape, with holsters attached. There was a metal plate on the left shoulder, with some old sports equipment down the arms for protection. There were brown and black leather holsters for pistols and knives down the legs, and metal knee caps which looked to have been created from tin cans. The belt was black polyester, it was the one which had been on the vault security armour, but it had had a couple of pouches and pockets added to store things made of brown leather, which made the suit look like it had been cobbled together from whatever was available, which was appropriate, as that was what had happened. It had also had a canvas backpack hung from the shoulders and hips.

"This one is yours, Luke." She said as she placed it on the counter. Luke approached it and picked it up, it looked sturdy, he had to admit.

She took out another suit from the locker. "And this is yours." Matthew took it from her. It was different from Luke's, featuring more leather protection on both arms, though less for the legs, with only a single leather kneecap for the right leg. It only had a single strap across the torso, and a single holster for a pistol.

Both of the suits looked a little bulkier than originally, and they discovered why when they opened it up. Moira had cut up their security armour and stitched some squares of the kevlar to the inside of the suit, around vital areas, such as the chest and back. Luke admired her ingenuity.

Luke smiled at Moira. "Thanks. Is there anywhere we could get changed?" He asked her, glancing towards the security guard in the corner, he hadn't seemed to have moved at all since the previous day.

"Sure! There are a couple of booths in the back. I let customers use them to try before they buy." She grinned, pointing towards the booths in question. They both walked over to and entered the booths.

Luke found the suit to be quite comfortable once he was wearing it, though a little tighter than he was used too, he certainly felt safer for wearing it.

After a few minutes, he tentatively drew back the stained red curtain of the booth sand stepped outside, Matthew was already wearing his and standing next to Moira, eating some kind of fruit.

"I got us breakfast." He said as Luke approached. "Crunchy Mutfruit."

Moira offered him a piece of the fruit. Luke eyed it suspiciously, before taking it in his hand. It looked kind of like an apple, except it was purple and wrinkled, with orange splotches in places. Luke had never eaten an apple before, he had only seen pictures in the vault, but he knew that this was not what an apple was supposed to look like.

He took a bite. It was sweet and sour at the same time.

"The orange is sweet, the purple is sour." Moira chirped. Luke nodded grimly and took another bite.

As they left the store, Moira called out, "Try not to die!" It was unsettling, her happy-go-lucky attitude, though Luke assumed she meant well.

"Why did you say that?" He asked Matthew as they approached the entrance to the town.

"Say what? The foreword thing? It was just a bit of fun." He laughed.

"It's cruel. She's clearly..."

"Insane?" He asked as they began their descent down a ramp.

"Confused." He corrected.

"Maybe, but she's happy, and she seems to believe that the sun is a lightbulb. So what's the harm?"

"You're making her seem like an idiot."

"I think she is an idiot. But she's a smart idiot. She's writing a book, after all: the Wasteland Survival Guide." He said it in a slightly mocking tone.

Luke was about to respond when the gates of Megaton began to screech open, preventing him from speaking. As they left the town, Matthew opened the duffle bag and pulled out a rifle.

"Where'd you get that?" Luke asked, all thoughts of Moira having left his mind.

"Springvale." He said, simply. "I got it yesterday. Got a little ammo too." He shouldered the bag again, pulling it tightly across his chest and continued walking. He stopped after a few steps.

"No." He said. "What am I doing?" He dropped the duffle bag and opened it up. "You can help carry this crap." He grabbed the spare jumpsuits and threw them at Luke, who failed to catch them.

Luke kneeled down and began picking them up out of the dirt. He opened up his back pack and began neatly folding them and placing them inside. A red baseball cap landed by the backpack, Luke wiped the dirt off and threw it on his head, closing the pack and throwing it over his shoulders once more.

"So what are you carrying now?" Luke asked, suspiciously.

"Nothing." He said, without looking, comtinuing along the path towards Springvale. "Just my clean underwear."

"So why am I carrying all this? And where is my underwear?"

Matthew looked back. "I'm carrying those too, we'll have to sort it all later: I don't want to wear your clothes. And I'm going to carry the food and medicine we bring back from the Super Duper Mart."

When they reached Springvale, they started heading east, towards their destination. Matthew looked jumpy, he held his rifle at the ready. It made Luke nervous, so he drew his pistol, preparing to fire.

They continued along the road, saying nothing. However, it was not silent, the sound of the wind rustling the brown grass was prevalent. Luke enjoyed the feeling of the wind, it felt nice on his skin and helped him to keep cool in the warm sun. As he walked along the road, by his brother's side, he felt a strange feeling: he was content, almost happy.

* * *

Matthew was troubled. He had started to think about Silver and that couple who he had killed yesterday. He wondered what had happened to the woman he stabbed, whether anybody had found her, whether anybody had helped her. He briefly considered turning back and investigating, but decided against it; even if she wasn't dead (and she probably was) then she almost certainly wouldn't have remained at the house. Besides, going to Silver's house meant that Luke would find out what had happened, and he'd likely find out about them not having been born in the Vault. Matthew didnt know why he hadn't told his brother - maybe he didn't fully believe it himself, that wasn't unlikely. Maybe he was protecting him? He wasn't sure.

It wasn't long until the Super Duper Mart came into view, it was a single building with a parking lot out in front. It stood alone in a sea of grey and brown. As they approached, the brothers could see a blonde haired man wearing a white shirt with a black leather jacket standing by the building, facing away from them. They readied their guns as he spotted them when they were only a few feet away.

"G-give m-me all your c-c-caps! Now!" His voice cracked at the last syllable.  
The brothers looked at each other, not sure how to respond. The man walked closer and pointed a sawn-off shotgun at Luke. "I d-don't have all d-d-d-day!" He said, once again, his voice faltered.

Matthew raised his rifle towards the man. "Drop the gun."

The man looked concerned, but maintained his composure. "Give me the caps!"  
The three remained still for several tense moments. It looked as if the impasse would continue indefinitely when the trio heard shouts coming from the front of the building.

Matthew looked past the would-be highwayman and spotted a group of people, six of them, running out of the building, brandishing various weapons and wearing metal made of scrap. They shouted threats and obscenities and began charging at them when they saw the stand off.

For a moment, the blonde man was distracted, he turned his head and shouted, "Raiders!" Luke grabbed the man's gun and shoved him to the ground, he fell onto his back with a grunt.

Luke aimed the shotgun at the approaching people and fired. He released a sound which, to Matthew, sounded like both a sigh of relief and a growl of frustration when the gun released nothing but an impotent click. Luke dropped the gun and drew his pistol, firing three shots at the raiders. One of them fell to the ground.

Matthew aimed for the group and fired, achieving nothing. He struggled to pull back the bolt, unfamiliar with the mechanism, before firing again. The third shot came more quickly than the second; another raider collapsed.

Matthew and Luke turned and ran away a few meters, before turning and firing again. Both of their bullets struck a woman in the chest, killing her. The raiders continued charging, heedless of their fallen comrades, they completely ignored the blonde man, who still lay in the dirt.

Matthew flinched as he felt a bullet whiz by his head, he leapt to the side as more shots landed at his feet. One of the raiders had pulled out a pistol, just like the one Silver had used, and was firing it wildly, with little concern for accuracy.

A man with a purple mohawk wielding a rusty kitchen knife approached Matthew. "I'm gonna fuck you up, kid!"

Matthew raised his rifle as the knife swung down at him, it bit into and embedded itself within the wood. Matthew drew back and tried to shoot the man, but he missed, the bullet thudding into the dirt behind him.

"Hahaha!" Mohawk cackled as he swung his fist at Matthew, it connected and he was sent staggering backwards.

He came at him again, Matthew wasn't willing to take another punch, he simply drew his knife, featuring dried blood from the day before, and allowed the man to impale himself as he came close. Blood spurted out of the wound in his stomach, covering Matthew' hand in the hot liquid. Mohawk looked into his eyes as he died, a look of pain and fear within them. Matthew lowered the man to the ground and pulled out the knife. He saw Luke standing nearby, having just emptied a magazine into the fifth raider.

They both froze as they saw the one remaining raider, pistol in her hands, wicked smile on her face. "You're gonna die now, kids." Her laugh was cut short by the rock impacting against the back of her head. She fell forwards, revealing the blonde man, bloody rock in hand, standing behind her.

Luke quickly reloaded his pistol and aimed at the man, Matthew followed suit, knife still embedded in the rifle.

The man looked scared. "Look, I... I'm sorry for threatening you, alright?"

"It wasn't very threatening, your gun wasn't even loaded." Luke said.

"I- I know, okay? Give me a break, I haven't eaten in days." He said, dropping the rock at his feet.

"Who are you?" Matthew asked.

"M-my name's Mel. Used to be a m-m-mercenary, but they k-k-k-kicked me out."

"C-c-can't imagine why." Matthew said, chuckling to himself. Luke cast him a disapproving glare, Matthew shrugged in response.

"Look, Mel..." Luke said, lowering the pistol. "We... We're going into the Super Duper Mart, there should be some food in there. So... If you want... You could tag along, I guess."

Matthew shot his brother an angry look and marched over to him, speaking in a hushed tone. "Did you forget that he just tried to rob and kill us?"

"He tried, Matthew. But he couldn't have succeeded, not without bullets." He looked at Mel, who was simply standing there, staring at them. He turned his attention back to Matthew, looking him in the eyes. "Come on. Show some compassion."

"For god's sake..." Matthew said. "Alright," he looked at Mel, "come along with us."

Mel smiled, "Thanks!"

"First though," Matthew said, pulling the knife out of his rifle and throwing it to the ground, "pick up her gun, take her ammo and reload it." Mel complied with the order, it took him a few seconds, but he was clearly quite competent with firearms. "Alright then, you go on first." He pointed to the building. Reluctantly, Mel ambled towards the building, the brothers following closely.

They stopped when they reached the front of the building, Matthew averted his eyes. There were dead, mutilated bodies lining the front of the building, hanging from hooks and chains, displayed in horrific poses for the world to see.

"What's wrong with these people?" Luke asked, Matthew couldn't provide an answer.

"They're raiders." Mel said simply, seemingly not phased by the bodies. "Savages." He added.

Matthew nodded and followed Mel I into the building, avoiding looking at the corpses.

It was dark inside the building, with only limited lighting: flickering and dim. The store was mostly a single, large room, filled with shelves, all of which were picked clean and decrepit.

The trio shuffled forwards, weapons readied, and ducked behind a checkout station and surveyed the room.

"Can't see anything in this dark." Luke whispered.

"I can se r-raiders." Mel said, peeking out over a cash register. "They're walking around on top of the shelves.

"How many?" Matthew asked, preparing the rifle.

"At least four of them on the walkways." He said, his voice was firm and more confident in here. "P-probably more deeper in."

Matthew nodded and aimed down his sights.

"Wait!" Mel said in a loud whisper. "We should spread out, hit them from m-m-multiple directions. It'll confuse 'em, keep 'em wondering." He directed his gaze to the floor when he stopped speaking, refusing eyes contact.

"Good idea, Mel." Luke said, tapping him on the shoulder before he dashed to the right, towards a counter which he vaulted over and disappeared behind.

Matthew moved to the left down the aisle of checkout points and crouched behind a cash register, rifle resting in the top. He looked down the sights and took aim at a figure in the darkness. It was walking, slowly, along the shelf. Matthew waited until he began walking towards him before he fired.

The shot rang out throughout the massive room, echoing across the walls. The raider fell, his armour clanging as he fell from the shelf into the hard floor. For a few precious moments, all was silent. Then, screams and shouts of primal fury rang out from the other side of the building. Curses and maniacal laughter followed shortly afterwards.

Matthew watched the raiders run down the aisle towards him, there were four of them. 'Fuck,' he thought to himself as he fired a shot at them, seemingly not hitting anything. He knew he only had three shots left. But had four enemies coming at him. 'Thank god for sidearms,' he smirked.

* * *

Luke popped his head up over the counter as he saw two raiders thundering across the room, towards him. He fired three shots in their direction, putting one of them down and forcing the other to take cover. Just as Luke was about to take another shot at him, several bullets impacted against the counter, making him drop down again. He remained behind the counter, waiting for the bullets to stop coming.

"I've got you now!" One of the raiders leapt over Luke's cover, golf club in hand. He faced Luke, a furious grin etched upon his face. The expression was wiped away as bullets impacted into the man's face and neck. Mel leapt over the counter, his shoulder ramming the already dead-on-his-feet raider, sending him to the floor. Mel spun on his heel and fired twice more to where he had just came from, before ducking behind the counter and fumbling with his ammunition. Luke quickly stood and fired at where Mel had, dropping a raider with a rifle.

"That was amazing, Mel." He said as he ducked back down. Mel merely smiled and continued reloading his .32 pistol.

Luke heard feet slamming upon the floor behind him, he stood up and fired, bullets impacting the approaching raider in the torso. He kept coming for a few feet before collapsing and sliding across the smooth floor.

The vault dweller began to reload his pistol from the safety of cover, while Mel began firing at any enemies in sight. "This damn peashooter," he cursed as he ran out of ammo again, "it doesn't have enough range or stopping power." Luke ignored him and began firing again, hitting nothing.

They took it in turns, one of them firing while the other reloaded, and eventually the raiders stopped coming. Luke guessed that he had expended about twenty rounds during the firefight, which made him dangerously low on ammo.

"I really can't imagine why those mercenaries kicked you out, Mel." Luke said, breathing heavily.

Mel simply smiled.

* * *

The building was silent except for the occasional groan emanating from the shelves and aisles. Matthew had just killed the last of the raiders coming at him with three 10mm rounds to the chest. He waited for a few moments before reloading his rifle and moving towards the counter where he knew Luke was located.

As he approached, Luke and Mel popped up and trained their pistols on him, he raised his hands and they relaxed.

"I think that's all of them." Matthew said as he approached the counter, still slouching slightly.

"Probably." Mel said. "I-I mean, if it wasn't, we'd know it."

Luke stood up straight. "We should look for the food and medicine now."

"D-d-don't forget to loot the bodies and search for ammo." Mel said as he pulled up a box from behind the counter, it was metal and rusted, green paint coming off in flecks. He opened it up amd looked inside. "Take this box, p-put any ammo you find inside. A lot of people just take the ammo and leave the box, but the boxes save space and keep it organised." He shifted his eyes away from them as they listened, his confidence fading again. Luke took the ammo box from him.

"Okay, let's get to work." Matthew said, wandering off into the aisles, rifle at the ready.  
Luke decided to follow him and leave Mel to deal with that corner of the store. Matthew checked all the bodies along the way, tossing their guns and anything else which looked useful into the duffle bag, while handing the ammo to Luke.

Luke avoided touching the corpses, pretending to search the shelves for food instead. This irritated Matthew, but he didn't bring it up. The shelves were all empty, seemingly having been long cleared out, there was nothing but empty glass bottles and tin cans left.

However, at the opposite end of the store from where they entered, they found a refrigerator, which Luke pried open. Inside was a lot of food; sealed tin cans and boxes of dehydrated foodstuff. Luke called Matthew over and shoved some of the food into the bag, though he left most of it where it was.

"Why leave it here?" Matthew asked.

"We don't really need it all, someone else could stumble upon it, and they may need it more."

"Or they could be raiders, who'll just hang their victims from hooks on the walls and stuff their faces with..." He grabbed a box from the duffle bag, reading the label, "sugar bombs." He tossed the box back into the bag.

"Maybe, but we can't carry it all anyway, this way leaves more room for guns and medicine."

Matthew grunted and walked away, leaving Luke visibly pleased with himself for winning the brief argument.

Matthew continued gathering the ammunition and weapons while Luke hovered over him, pretending to search for medicine. Matthew suspected that the raiders wouldn't leave their medicine lying around on the shelves, if they had any at all, and that Luke just didnt want to go through a dead person's possessions. He couldn't blame him.

* * *

Eventually, they came across a section of the store which was the pharmacy. They hopped over the waist high counter which enclosed it and investigated the area. In the back was a door which had a computer next to it, along the counter were a few metal crates and ammo boxes. Luke set about looting them while Matthew tried the door. It was locked, so he investigated the terminal.

After a few minutes, Luke had cleared the section of all useful items, including two strange pistols, which he pondered for a few moments before gently placing into the bag. The guns were very square as all of their bends were at right angles, they looked a little worse for wear too, with wires sticking out from beneath duct tape. Still, they looked like they may have been valuable. Luke guessed they were some sort of energy weapons, perhaps meant to deliver an electric shock. He didn't try the weapons out, however.  
When he was done, he wandered over to stand behind Matthew, who had just finished hacking the computer.

"What was the password?" He asked him.

"Password." He replied, chuckling. "It was surprisingly difficult to crack."

He tapped a few keys, navigating through the terminal before standing up and switching the machine off. "Done." He said as he walked over to the door, it opened with a small squeak.

Inside, there were a lot of shelves, loaded with empty boxes and bottles. Matthew walked over to a medical cabinet hanging on the wall, he opened it and emptied the contents into the duffle bag, not paying much attention to what was in it.

Meanwhile, Luke meandered over towards a large cylindrical canister with a glass front. Inside was a robot, it resembled the one which stood outside Megaton. He admired the metal man for a few moments, wondering if he still functioned, and was startled when the canister opened up with a hiss. He reached for his gun, only to see Matthew standing over a terminal to the left of the machine, typing something.

"You could have warned me..." Luke grumbled. The robot stumbled out of its pot, rambling about its protocols. It eventually left the room, going out into the rest of the store.

Then, another thing caught Luke's eye. It was a small object which looked rather like the bomb in the centre of Megaton. It was green and yellow, with radiation warning signs painted on the sides. He picked it up, it was pretty heavy. He placed it into his back pack, not wanting to overly weigh his brother down.

"Catch!" Said brother called out. Luke turned and saw something flying towards him, he jumped out of the way. The object landed on the floor and shattered, spilling its liquid across the floor.

"I said 'catch,' Luke, not dodge." He held a bottle of Nuka Cola in one hand, a bottle opener in the other. He sipped the drink. "It's warm, but not too bad."

"It's two hundred years old!" Luke cried.

"So? The vault's stuff is just as old. You think they make it down there? Anyway, this stuff doesn't go bad. The radioactive isotopes kill most microbes and stuff which find their way inside, I think." He picked up another bottle from the shelf and tossed it at Luke, who caught it this time. "Found a weird bottle - it glows." He showed it to Luke, who shrugged in response. He took the bottle and slid it into his back pack amongst the jumpsuits, hooping it would be cushioned by them.

Luke opened his bottle of Nuka-Cola, hoping to refresh himself and enjoy the fruity taste. He never got the chance. He dropped the bottle, shattering it, as he heard the sound of gunfire coming from the main room.


	4. Chapter Four: Radioactive

**A/N: I'd like to thank everybody who has given a review so far. It's you guys who keep me writing! Thanks again! Please excuse this chapter's relative brevity, I'll do better next time. As always, please feel free to comment on my writing. All criticism, constructive and otherwise, is welcome.**

The brothers rushed out of the store room and back into the pharmacy towards the sounds of battle. As they did so, bullets began pinging off the walls around them and whizzed by their heads. The pair dived for cover behind the old metallic counter, keeping an eye out for the attackers.

They spotted them not too far away, maybe twenty feet; Raiders. They were kneeling behind some stone masonry and shelves which had toppled onto that part of the floor. They were armed with rifles and pistols and were putting them to good use. Matthew fired a shot in their general direction, to little effect.

"What the hell do we do now?" Luke asked, flinching as a bullet ricocheted off the counter and impacted into the ceiling.

Before Matthew could respond, they heard a monotonous droning and an electronic buzz. They peeked over the counter and saw the robot engaging the riflemen with lasers. Luke took a small a amount of time to ponder just why a supermarket's robotic assistant needed military grade lasers. He was shaken from his thoughts, however, by Matthew firing his rifle at the distracted enemy. He missed twice, but the third bullet struck one of the attackers, a woman, in the neck. She went down, jerking, her neck spurting red fluid like a fountain.

Luke began to fire with his pistol, hitting one of them in the stomach. The man went down, yelling in pain, before he was silenced by the robot's red laser. It wasn't long before the robot fell under sustained fire from the attackers, it collapsed in a heap with a shower of sparks and was quickly used as cover by one of the raiders. They then returned their attention to the brothers, continuing to fire at the pharmacy.

Just as Luke was about to suggest they make a run for it, he heard a deafening sound, an explosion, it rang in his ears and rang there for some time. After the noise faded from existence, there was silence. The guns had stopped firing. Matthew looked out over the counter, Luke mimicked him.

They couldn't see anyone, merely a small cloud of smoke hanging in the air where their attackers had been. Out from the shelves emerged Mel, newly acquired rifle in hand. He looked towards the vault dwellers and waved them over. Luke quickly hopped over the counter and moved over to him, Matthew followed, more cautiously.

"Good to see you, Mel." Luke said to the man who had held a gun to his head not so long ago. "What happened?"

"These people came in. I think they're raiders coming back from... A raid." He shuddered. "They attacked me, I ran away into the aisles. They followed me, but I managed to g-get the jump on them. They had a rifle and a couple of grenades. I followed the gunshots and, well, here I am." He looked at the carnage he had caused, there were body parts scattered across the floor, blood was everywhere, he didn't seem all that affected.

"Pretty gruesome." Matthew commented as he picked up one of the deceased's rifles. "This is different from mine."

"That's a battle rifle." Mel offered. "It's old, even by pre-war standards. Semi-automatic, easy to maintain, good range, bountiful ammunition. Pretty useful."

Matthew held the rifle out to Luke, who took it from him. The cloth strap was damp with blood. Nevertheless, Luke hung it across his back.

"Did you find the food and m-m-meds?" Mel asked eagerly.

Matthew nodded and tossed him a box of sugar bombs. Mel opened it up and tore into them hungrily. Matthew set about the grim task of looting the body parts of their valuables. Luke decided to give a helping hand this time.

It wasn't long until Mel had finished the sugar bombs and the brothers had finished looting. They emerged from the store, blinking from the bright sunlight and weighed down by all of their new stuff.

"There's more food inside a refrigerator in the back of the store." Matthew said to Mel, who nodded in response. "Thanks for the help, Mel." He offered his hand, Mel shook it tentatively.

As Mel turned to re-enter the store and Matthew turned back in the direction of Springvale, Luke remained where he was, glancing back and forth between the two of them. "Wait!" He said, a little louder than he had intended. Mel stopped in his tracks. "Mel... Why don't you come with us?" He asked, smiling.

"C-come with y-you?" He asked, hope infiltrating his submissive voice.

"Sure. We could use company, and you might be useful to us. And I'm sure you could use the company too."

"Hold on a minute, Luke." Matthew said, grabbing his brother by the shoulder and pulling him close. "Remember, Luke. This guy almost blew your head off less than an hour ago." He spoke in a low tone, but still loud enough for Mel to hear.

Luke shook his head. "Nope. He didnt have any ammo, remember?" He spoke in his usual register, not deigning to be sercretive. "And he was desperate. And he saved our lives. Twice." He stepped back from his brother. "Besides," he added, "Mel knows the Wasteland better than we do. And we need a guide to take us to Galaxy News." He turned to face Mel. "Do you know where Galaxy News Radio is?" Mel nodded eagerly. "There you go, Matt." He crossed his arms, making his best attempt at projecting an air of finality.

It worked. "Fine. He can continue to tag along." Matthew pointed at Mel. "But you better start carrying stuff. I'll be damned if I'm the one to carry everything around." Mel nodded again, once. He looked back at Luke. "And you owe me one, alright?"

"Okay then." Luke said, clapping his hands. "Mel, welcome to the... Uh... Team? Posse? I don't know what this is, but welcome to it." He smiled, satisfied.

The trio walked together, westwards towards Springvale, before turning south and heading to Megaton. Along the way, Luke took the liberty of explaining to Mel what the brothers were doing in the wasteland and why.

"Well," he began, "I woke up one day to find Amata shouting at me, reeling me to wake up. It turned out that our dad had left the vault."

It took around four minutes for Luke to tell the story, Matthew remained silent throughout. Mel nodded and asked questions at appropriate times, but said little else.

* * *

"So we left the vault and found our way to Megaton. After doing a couple of things, we found out that our dad had gone to Galaxy Mews Radio. So we were thinking about a guide, and in the meantime we decided to help this woman, Moira, with writing her book. And here are." He said, taking a breath.

"So we need to go to Galaxy News, in the ruins. You said you knew where it was?" Matthew asked as they passed the burnt out wreck of a house.

Mel nodded. "I've been there before. It's teeming with super mutants, though."

"Super mutants?" Luke asked. Matthew winced, overhearing their conversation. Moriarty had told him about the mutants, but he had neglected to pass the information to his brother.

"Yeah." Mel said simply. "S-sadly, you're going to have to m-m-meet them. They're big and g-green and ug... ugly." He looked a little scared. "They... They kidnap people or kill them. P-p-personally, I'd rather be killed. N-nobody knows where they take their c-c-captives." They were silent for a few moments, before Mel asked, "So what's it like to live in a v-vault?"

* * *

The three men continued, walking and talking for the remainder of their journey. They were watched by raiders from the nearby elementary school, but the fiends maintained their distance, kept in check by their leader, who wasn't interested in the three wastelanders. No, he had other targets. He brought the binoculars up to his one good eye and stared out at the pile of scrap that was Megaton.

"I'm coming for you, Jericho." He said softly to himself.

* * *

Luke turned away from the railing overlooking the town as his brother exited Craterside Supply.

"Well?" He asked.

"We made a few hundred caps." He said simply. "And she's got another job for us to do." He scratched his chin. "But I'm wondering whether we should just go to Galaxy News right now, rather than continue with this book of hers. What do you think?"

"I don't know. We have everything we need, a guide, food, ammo. So why don't we just go?" He thought for a moment. "But then again, we did say that we'd help Moira, and dad isn't really going anywhere, is he?"

"He might be dead." Said Mel.

Luke and Matthew glared at him.

"I'm s-sorry." He said. "But the Super M-Mutants are thick in those r-ruins, one m-m-m-man would have trouble g-g-getting through the ruins. Heck, we're going to have t-trouble getting through and there are th-ree of us!"

"Stay positive, Mel. Stay positive." Luke said, unwilling to think about what he had said. "I think we should do this little thing for Moira, maybe learn a little more about the wasteland. Then we can go to the ruins."

Matthew smiled and crossed his arms. "Well, you haven't heard what the job is yet." Matthew told them the task, which was to recover a landmine and explore the town called Minefield.

"Where is this town?" Luke asked. Matthew turned his attention to Mel, who paled.

"O-okay." Said Mel, pointing at Luke's pip-boy. He realised what Mel was pointing at and activated the device. Mel walked over and stood next to him, fumbling with some of the dials.

"These p-pip-boys, they've got maps on them. E-Elevation m-maps of the area." He pushed a few buttons and a map of the east coast USA flashed into existance, Commonwealth and State borders etched across the landscape. Mel withdrew his hands from the device, leaving Luke to twist the knobs and dials to zoom in towards the District of Columbia and parts of Maryland and Virginia.

"Minefield is..." His finger hovered over the display for a few moments before coming down onto the surface. "Here. It's to the north, east of G-G-Germantown and P-Paradise Falls. There are Super Mutants and Slavers all along the route there. And Big Town, too."

"What's Big Town? And what's Paradise Falls?" Matthew asked.

Mel seemed startled by the question. "Bog Town is... it's a town. Inhabited by... T-Teenagers, I guess."

"What? Why?" Luke asked.

"They're from Little L-Lamplight, which is a t-t-town inhabited only by kids, b-by the way. When the Lamplighters get too old, they get k-kicked out. They all go to B-Big Town."

Luke smiled. "And when the Big Towners get older they go to another town?" He asked.

"No." Mel said. "They usually don't live very long. The s-super mutants take them."  
Luke's smile faded.

"Wait." Said Matthew. "If this... Little Lamplight, is inhabited by kids... Where do they get new kids from?"

Mel shrugged. "Paradise Falls is the main base of the slavers in this p-part of the wasteland. People come from as far as Superior and the P-P-Pitt to buy slaves. Not many p-people come from the south, though."

"Alright. Did Moira have any other jobs she wanted done instead of this?" Luke asked.

"Yeah... She umm..." He rubbed his chin. "She said she wants to study radiation. One of us needs to get irradiated." He said frankly.

"Well I'm not d-doing it." Mel said firmly. "I'm not here to become your ghoul."

Matthew shrugged and turned his attention to Luke. Finding all eyes in him, Luke sighed. "Fine. I'll do it. Can't be too bad. How much radiation?" Matthew looked at his feet and mumbled something.

"What?"

"I said, only six hundred rads or so."

"Six hundred rads!?" Luke asked in surprise.

"Or so." He pointed out.

Luke ran his hand through his hair. "Okay, okay. It's fine. We have Rad-Away. What do I do once I'm irradiated?"

"She wants to study you." He shrugged. "We come back here and she... I don't know... Takes a blood test or something."

He groaned. "Where am I going to get six hundred rads from, anyway?"

Matthew shook his head.

"Well..." Mel tapped his shoulder and pointed to something. Luke followed his arm to what he was pointing at; the bomb in the centre of town.

* * *

"Okay, how do I do this?" Luke asked, standing a few feet away from the bomb and the filthy pool of water in which it rested.

"Just sit in the water, I suppose." Matthew said, eyeing the old man who was stood next to the bomb, preaching about atoms.

Luke walked over and stood next to the bomb, irradiated water reaching up to his shins. The Geiger counter of his pip-boy ticked fiercely.

The preacher regarded him, suspiciously. "Have you come to bask in His glow?" The man asked. Luke nodded. "Then welcome, friend." He turned towards the people of Megaton who were loitering in the area. "Friends! Children of Atom! Cast your eyes over here!" He waved his arms around, attracting the attention of a few settlers. "Here," he pointed at Luke, "we have one of the faithful! A true Child of Atom! He basks in His glow, receiving His blessing."

The preacher continued addressing the crowd, which was steadily growing in size. Luke was getting uncomfortable under the watching eyes of the people. His pip-boy told him he was only up to a hundred rads. 'Not fast enough,' he thought to himself. An idea came to him, which he immediately hated.

He looked down at the water, if was a greenish-brown colour; filthy and obviously irradiated. 'I'm going to hate myself for this...' He knelt down and, to the surprise of all the onlookers, dunked his head into the water, taking in great gulps of it.

He rose a few seconds later, coughing and spluttering, spitting out some of the water. He checked his pip-boy: three hundred rads.

The preacher looked at him in shock. "Prophet!" He shouted, pointing at Luke. "Behold the Prophet, Children of Atom. For he has consumed His glory!" The man turned to face Luke and bowed slightly. "Kneel before His glory, devout Children!"

Behind the preacher, a few people fell to their knees. 'Oh, great,' Luke thought. Reluctantly, he cupped some of the water in his hands and began to drink it. To the admiring gasps of the faithful and the bemused looks of the sane.

Luke regarded his pip-boy again, it read just under six hundred rads. "This will do..." He muttered as he stepped out of the pool of water. As he began walking back towards his brother, he stumbled and fell to one knee, coughing violently. Matthew and Mel ran over to him, grabbing his arms and pulling him to his feet. Supported in their shoulders, Luke began making his way back to Moira.

Behind them, the preacher continued to preach about the Prophet Who Consumed His Glow.

* * *

"Wow! You actually did it?" Moira seemed genuinely surprised. "Don't worry about the radiation, I've cooked a little something up which will make it all better!" She leaned in closer to Matthew and whispered, "It's made from Brahmin milk." She winked.

"What's a Brahmin?" Matthew wondered aloud. Moira ignored him.

"So, Luke, how do you feel?"

Luke was on his knees, shivering, his muscles and lungs were burning. And his speech was interrupted with coughs and wheezes. "I feel... Awful... Like my genes are crying..."

"You could say that it adds to your glowing personality." Matthew said suddenly, grinning.  
Moira laughed, much to Luke's visible irritation. "Okay, that's great." She walked away towards the counter. She returned a few moments later with a large glass of liquid. It was pink with spots of red swirling around inside.

"Okay... Drink up." She said, handing the glass to Luke. He almost dropped it. Matthew took it and raised it to Luke's mouth.

He took large mouthfuls, it looked like it tasted unimaginably foul, but Matthew kept pouring and Luke kept drinking, his face screwed up in disgust.

After half the liquid was gone, Moira stopped them. "Okay, that's enough. We wouldn't want you to get any of those nasty side effects, would we?" She chirped.

"Side... Side effects?" Luke burped.

"Oh yeah... A few things. Nothing major really." She scratched her head. "Kidney stones is the most common one."

Luke laughed meekly, "great."

"There's also hemorrhaging, kidney failure, lung collapse, and mild headaches. In order of likelihood."

Matthew regarded her, trying to tell if she was serious, it was difficult to tell. He pulled Like to his feet, supporting his brother on Mel's and his own shoulder. He had to admit, he looked much better already, he wasn't shivering, and his skin wasn't on fire. He still looked like he had a bad taste in his mouth, though.

"Just get plenty of rest today so as to reduce the chances of side effects." She said."Except for the kidney stone. You're definitely going to get one of those."

"Okay, thanks, I guess." Said Luke bitterly.

"No, no. Thank you, Luke." She smiled. "Remember, come back with a deactivated landmine from that town."

"You still want us to do that?" Matthew asked, still supporting Luke on his shoulder.

"Of course, silly. This book isn't going to finish itself." She smiled again.

Matthew nodded and turned in the direction of the door.

* * *

As Luke was helped through the exit, the trio stopped in their tracks. A small crowd had gathered in front of the store, the preacher in white clothing at its head.

"Behold!" He cried out. "The Prophet yet lives!" The crowd gasped in awe. "He is healthier for basking in His glow! All hail the Prophet!"

"Hail the Prophet!" The crowd droned.

"No! I'm not a prophet!" Luke said, stumbling towards the crowd.

"It is a test of our faith!" Somebody shouted.

"Will you please listen? I'm not a Prophet! Honestly!"

"Only a true Messiah denies his divinity!" A woman called.

"What?" He asked, confused, annoyed, and feeling sick. "Well," he sighed, "All right, I am the Prophet!" Trying reverse psychology.

"He is! He is the Prophet!" They chanted.

Luke let his face fall into his hands. "You drink irradiated water all day, every day!" He pleaded.

"Yes!" The preacher cried. "But we do not drink from his holiest glow and live!" He turned to address the crowd. "We must give the Prophet and his Apostles our aid and hospitality, lest we bring about Atom's displeasure."

The crowd cheered their consent and rushed at Luke. They grabbed at him and hoisted him up upon their shoulders, ignoring his protests. They hauled him off into town, chanting about his glow all the while.

* * *

Matthew and Mel looked on, stunned. They moved to intercept the crowd, but the preacher stood before them and blocked their path. "Come, Apostles!" He said. "We have matters of faith to discuss." He hurried off after the crowd, managing to keep pace with them despite the fact that he had a limp. Matthew and Mel rushed after him, completely confused.

They followed the crowd to an unassuming building near the location of the bomb. A sign declared the building to be the Church of Atom. As they entered, Luke was dragged upstairs, while Matthew and Mel were herded into a room on the ground floor. The door slammed shut and locked behind them.

Matthew tried to open it, but it was secure. Instead, he began pacing the room. He heard voices and footsteps on the ceiling, which he took to mean that Luke and the preacher were in the room above. 'Hopefully,' he thought, 'this will all be cleared up as a misunderstanding.'

He and Mel remained in the bare room for what felt like hours, but his pip-boy told him was a mere ten minutes, before the corrugated iron door screeched open and Luke entered, looking quite pale.

Matthew turned to face him as the door closed. "Well?" He asked.

"They still think I'm a prophet." He said. "I told them about dad, and why we're out here, but they twisted the story and made it... Biblical. They think we're in a crusade to save the wasteland or something. They think you're my Apostles." He shook his head and sat down on a plastic chair. "On the bright side," he said, perking up a little, "they've given us a place to stay for tonight."

Mel sat in silence, not really knowing what to say. He almost certainly hadn't expected this to happen when he woke up under a bridge this morning, thought Matthew as he saw the confused look in the man's face.

Matthew was also silent. Day two out of the vault and they had already garnered a cult following. How wold they explain this to dad when they found him?

A woman entered the room, the door screeching in complaint. "Prophet?" She asked hesitantly. "We have your accommodations ready." She stood in the doorway, eyes at the floor.

"Thank you." Luke smiled and stood up, steadying himself on the chair, still feeling some of the effects of Moira's "cure" and the radiation. He followed after the woman, who scurried out of the room. Matthew and Mel followed him.

They ascended a set of stairs, to what Matthew assumed was the top floor of the building. They found themselves in a large room, the spiral junk staircase in the centre. There wouldn't be much privacy, but Matthew wasn't complaining. There were several beds throughout the room, set beneath the sloped ceiling. In said ceiling, there had been holes cut into the metal to create windows. The windows had glass, seemingly pulled from other, pre existing buildings and vehicles and crudely fixed into place. By the standards of Megaton, this was luxury.

"Here is your room, Prophet." She curtesied towards Luke, and then to Matthew and Mel, before scurrying down the staircase.

"Are you going to let them continue to think you're their..." Matthew searched for the right word. "Messiah?"

Like shrugged. "What else can I do? They think I'm 'testing their faith' when I try to tell them otherwise." He sat down on a nearby bed.

"What about when th-they find out the t-t-truth?" Mel stuttered.

Luke shrugged again, laying down on the bed. "I guess I'll just have to avoid that bridge altogether." He sighed.

Matthew checked his pip-boy, it was nine in the evening. It had been a long day. He sat down on one of the beds and wondered what tomorrow would be like. They had done a lot in two days. Uncovered a lot. Matthew cast his mind back to what Moriarty had told him. Had he really been born in The Wasteland? Why had dad lied to him and Luke? And where the hell was he going? Come to think of it, when the hell were he and Luke going to search for him?

He briefly considered telling Luke what he had discovered, before pushing the thoughts away. What would be the point? It may not even be true, best to let Luke continue not knowing, ignorance is bliss, after all. Besides, Luke no doubt had a lot on his mind; having just found out he was divine.

Yes, Matthew thought, tomorrow was going to be an interesting day.

* * *

As the reluctant holy man and his apostles lay in bed. The raiders of Springvale were stirring, like hornets having been disturbed in their hive.

Outside the school, Boppo, their leader, stood on the too of a bus which had been partially repaired by some eggheads his boys had captured, the bus revved its engines, drawing the raiders' attentions.

"All right boys and girls!" He shouted, his maniacal voice carrying across the burnt out town. "We've got a town to raid!" His crowd roared in assent, some if them firing their guns into the air.

"Remember," he said, "leave Jericho to me, everyone else..." He paused, his raiders looked up eagerly, waiting to hear their favourite words, "... Kill 'em." They cheered again. "Kill 'em any way you want!" He laughed, it the noise was drowned out by the roars of approval.

After a few more minutes of cheering, a large group of the raiders clambered into the bus, some of them climbing in top of it and ducking behind the scrap metal which had been affixed to it to provide them with cover. The rest, those thirty or so who didnt have transport, ran alongside the vehicle as it rumbled slowly along the road, the forty passengers soothing and whistling into the night.

* * *

Atop his perch, Stockholm, Megaton's uncredited protector, squinted out into the darkness. He could see some sort of light in the town. Two of them, in fact. They were like two orbs, floating side by side, moving together, maintaining their distance from each other. He heard noises too, they were difficult to make out, being so far away, but Stockholm knew trouble when he heard it. He aimed his rifle towards the noise. For a second, he thought he saw a flash in the darkness. It disappeared a split second later, and Stockholm toppled over the railing, landing in the brown dirt with a thud.

* * *

Matthew felt like he had only been asleep for a few minutes when he heard a colossal explosion. His first thought was that the bomb in the centre of town had blown up, but he quickly dismissed those thoughts, knowing that he would already be dead had that been the case.

He rolled out of the uncomfortable bed, onto the even more uncomfortable floor, and reached for his vault suit, trying to pull it on while simultaneously hopping over to his brother's bed. He still didn't understand, after nineteen years, how Luke was such a heavy sleeper.

"Luke!" He shouted as he tripped over his suit, landing on his brother, who woke with a start.

"What the hell!? Get off me!" He swung his arm around, his elbow striking Matthew square in the jaw.

Matthew rolled off the bed, holding his jaw and cursing. "Get up, idiot!" He shouted.

Luke sat up in bed and looked ready to say something, when another explosion sounded throughout the town, followed by gunfire and screams. Without a word, Luke sprang out of bed, sleep suddenly seeming so far away, and reached for his clothes.

Matthew pulled himself to his feet and pulled himself into his suit, tightening the straps and belts.

Mel came over to them, apparently already dressed and holding a rifle. "The town is under attack!" He shouted.

"You think?" Matthew said, picking up his own rifle and running over to a window. He stared out across the crater, he could see Megaton's entrance. Part of it was missing, having been blown up. And there were hundreds of flashes at the gates, the flash of guns being fired. Most of the flashes seemed directed into the town, with very few weapons being trained upon the attackers.

A dark, sleek shape came into the town from outside, flying swiftly through the air, fire streaming in its wake. It struck a building, exploding with a blinding flash and leaving a gaping hole in the metal walls.

"This is a v-very big raid." Mel said, walking towards the stairs.

Luke had finally gotten into his suit and had the battle rifle in his hands. "We have to help them." He said.

"Well, duh." Matthew said, rolling his eyes.

He quickly moved to the staircase and began to descend, he almost walked straight into the Preacher.

"Saint Matthew!" He cried as he saw him. "Our abode is under attack!"

"We know, Confessor Cromwell." Luke said from behind his brother. "We're coming to help the town."

Cromwell grinned. "Oh, thank Atom!" He turned and began rushing down the stairs. "We do not know why the non-believers attack us, but please, Prophet, you must lead out warriors."

"Warriors?" Matthew asked.

Cromwell didn't answer as he led the trio to the ground floor. There were ten men and one woman, armoured in leather and armed with pistols and rifles, they all looked determined.

"Our warriors." Cromwell said proudly. "They will lay down their lives for Atom and his Prophet. And aid you three in your crusade against the infidels."

Mel spoke up, "I've heard of this ch-ch-church. And I've heard that your pacifists, so why are you fighting."

Cromwell looked solemn. "Sometimes his vessel must be defended by force of arms."

Matthew spoke next. "Fine. Lets get to where the fighting is." He beckoned as he marched towards the door.

"Hold on!" Mel said. "We need a plan."

"Ah, Saint Mel the Cautious." Cromwell said, nodding knowingly.

Mel ignored him. "If we rush at them head on, they'll just gun us down, they have the high ground." He stood in the centre of the room and raised his voice. "They must either be raiders, or mercenaries. If its the latter, they're looking for something or someone. I don't know who it is, but they won't leave until they find it. But if its r-raiders, it doesn't matter why they're here, they can be driven off easily." He gulped as he realised all eyes were on him. "If we find their leader, and kill him or her; the rest will start running."

He stood in the centre if the room, silent for a few moments, seemingly deep in thought. "If we go around the lip of the crater in two groups, we can flank them. We can hope that the rest of the town has formed some sort of defence and is trying to s-stop them getting any d-d-deeper. That will mean they'll be under fire from three sides. Now, r-raider leaders tend to lead from the front, if we fire on them from three sides, he'll probably go down in the crossfire. The others will retreat."

"What if its mercenaries?" The sole woman in the room asked. She had a submachine gun hanging from her waist, and a pair of goggles sitting on her brown hair.

Mel was nervous from having been addressed directly, he rubbed his neck and shifted his gaze to the floor. "Then we'll just have to kill them all." He muttered.


	5. Chapter Five: School's Out!

Matthew ducked behind the metal wall as half a dozen bullets flew by his head. Mel's plan hadn't gone exactly right. For one thing, the raiders had, somehow, brought in a large, functioning bus which attempted to force its way through Megaton's entrance.

Fortunately, the bus proved to be too wide and the entrance too narrow, so it was now stuck in place. This was not, however, entirely to the defenders' benefit; the raiders clambered atop the bus and fired down at Megaton's rag-tag defence force, and they could still come through from outside as the bus had two doors, one at each end. It slowed the flood of raiders down to a trickle, but not much else.

The second thing which had gone wrong, was that nobody seemed to be leading Megaton's defence, the Sheriff had been shot early on, and while he wasn't dead, he was incapacitated and currently located in the clinic. Worse Mel had been shot. He, too, was still alive, but unable to fight. This meant that there was nobody who had any combat experience to take up the mantle of leadership. Although the Church if Atom's so called 'Holy Warriors' seemed to listen to Matthew or Luke and many of the others seemed to be content to receive instructions of any kind from anybody, unfortunately, neither Luke nor Matthew had any idea what to do, and no way to communicate with each other as they were located on opposite sides of the entrance.

Matthew was located to the left of Megaton's entrance, near where Lucas Simms used to live. In fact, Matthew was currently taking cover behind what used to be Lucas Simm's staircase - his house had been blown up by a raider's missile. Luke was out of sight, Matthew had no idea where he was, though he was probably alongside most of the Holy Warriors who were unwilling to leave their 'prophet' undefended. All the same, Matthew was worried about his brother.

The Holy Warriors' original attack had gone well, the raiders were caught by surprise and a lot of the, were killed. At that time, the raiders had reached the clinic and were storming up towards Craterside Supply, where several settlers, Moira included, were tossing grenades down at them. Their leader pulled the raiders back when he discovered that his flanks were under attack, they were currently occupying a previously uninhabited house near the entrance, firing down at the defenders. Matthew and those around him (about twelve assorted inhabitants of Megaton) couldn't move forwards without being shit at by the raiders on the bus. It was incredibly frustrating.

Matthew poked his head up once more, another group of raiders were filing out of the bus. He fired at them with his rifle, killing two of them before being forced back behind cover. "How many of them are there?" He growled to himself.

"Get on your feet, maggot! Face those commies like a man!" A voice shouted. Matthew looked up to see what looked like a Mister Handy robot, except it was painted green with a white star painted in the side, and instead of a circular saw, it featured a strange looking green light. Matthew soon learned that it was not a green light when it released a strange ball of energy which screamed towards one of the raiders, melting the man's chest.

The robot hovered over the cover Matthew was hiding behind and began firing at the raiders, killing them with brutal efficiency, melting and disintegrating them. Matthew, eager to be out of the dirt, followed behind the robot, keeping low and shooting any raiders gap that it missed. A group of settlers followed Matthew in turn.  
The robot came to a halt in front of the bus, bullets pinging off its armoured hull. The robot's arms rotated, selecting a different weapon, one which Matthew immediately recognised as a flamethrower.

"You've just made my day." It droned as it fired a stream of liquid fire into the vehicle. Matthew winced as he heard the savage, primal screams of those trapped within. Those on top quickly jumped off the vehicle, unable to stand the intense heat, only to be gunned down by the settlers.

Matthew had just finished putting a bullet in one such raiders brain when he turned his attention back to the robot, one of its yellow eyes was looking at him. "Good work, soldier." It said, seemingly sincere. "Now lets kill 'em all and let god sort 'em out!"  
Unexpectedly, the robot turned and aimed his plasma weapon at the bus, firing a single shit at the wreckage.

The bus exploded in a massive fireball, blowing apart a good chunk of Megaton's walls and propelling Matthew and anyone else who was too close several feet through the air. He landed in his back, winded and unable to get up.

He stared up at the sky, which was filled with wreckage from the walls and bus, falling back down to earth. Matthew could only watch as he saw a large sheet of metal flying through the air towards him, he closed his eyes and waited for it to hit him.

It was several moments later when he opened his eyes again. Looking to his right, he saw the scrap imbedded in the dirt next to him, just a short distance away. If it had been only three feet to the left, Matthew would have been split vertically in half.

He breathed a sigh of relief and began smiling. The smile faded, however, when he heard the metal groaning and leaning towards him.  
"Oh fuck." He said as everything went black.

* * *

Luke heard the most terrible screams coming from the direction of Megaton's entrance. He wasn't sure what to make of them, whoever it was, they were in a lot of pain, he just hoped Matthew wasn't among them.

"Prophet, behind you!" He heard a woman shout. Luke turned around to find a raider woman running at him. He swung his rifle, the butt connecting with her face, knocking the scantily armoured woman off her feet. The "Holy Warriors" with him quickly finished her off with multiple rifle rounds.

Luke quickly ran for the cover of some nearby scrap, the sole "Holy Warrior" woman crouched beside him.

"Thanks," he breathed.

"No problem," she winked at him.

He wasn't sure what to make of the wink, so he ignored it. "We need to-" he stopped, interrupted by an explosion, larger than any if the missiles which had been fired. An unexplainable sense of dread overcame him for a brief moment, he pushed it away. "We need to find a way to deal with that house." He continued, pointing towards the building in question which was being bombarded by pieces of metal, falling from the sky.

She rolled her eyes, "I know, Prophet. What would you suggest."

"Well, we could use some heavier weapons." He thought aloud.

"I can help with that." A man dived into the dirt at Luke's feet, bullets impacting dragged himself along beside the woman. "I've got this." He tilted is head towards a large device he was carrying in both hands. "I'm Leo, by the way, Leo Stahl."

"I'm Luke Lightman." He said simply, looking at the device. It looked like it was intended to propell something, a large grenade maybe, Luke thought. "This is..." He motioned towards the woman.

"Alice." She said, smiling at Leo. The sight of her smiling looked out of place amongst the screaming and gunfire.

"What is that thing?" Luke asked.

"It's called a Fat Man." Leo said. "I got it from the armoury, it launches a nuclear warhead. Pretty powerful." He grinned. "One problem though: we don't have any nukes. Except the one in the centre of town, obviously, but is a little too big for this."  
Luke thought for a moment, trying to come up with a solution. Then it hit him. He ripped his back pack from his shoulders and tore it open.

"Would this work?" He asked, hefting the small, green bomb he had found earlier that day in the Super Duper Mart.

Leo's eyes lit up. "Definately." He snatched the bomb from Luke's hands and loaded it into the weapon. "Better cover your ears." He grinned.

Leo stood up and aimed the weapon, angling it upwards. Before he could fire, however, a shower of bullets ripped into him, tearing holes in his white shirt which was rapidly becoming red. He fell backwards, a pained look on his face.

Luke grimaced and reached for the weapon. Just as his hand reached it, Alice shoved him out of the way. She grabbed the weapon and stood up tall, adjusting the angle only slightly. Wordlessly, she fired the weapon.

Luke watched as the nuke was propelled out of the weapon with a thump. It flew upwards through the air, spinning slowly until reaching its maximum height. It seemed to stop and hang in the air for a moment, reflecting the light off its metal surfece, defying gravity if only for a moment before returning to earth. It fell in through roof of the house, shredding the corrugated metal and landing within. The building simply disappeared. For a millisecond, all was well, then the fire erupted from the gaps in the walls, rushing outwards and engulfing the entire structure. The light it emitted was blinding, he could see the spectre if the mushroom cloud when he blinked. Night turned into day, if only for a second before disappearing again. Then the sound came, the bomb exploded with an almighty bang. It was the loudest noise Luke had ever experienced, and it deafened him.  
In the aftermath, there was nothing but a smoking ruin where the building had once been.

The settlers maintained their distance, the heat from the wreckage was still intense: metal was glowing white hot and even from a distance of several meters, Luke could feel the heat on his skin. His Geiger counter ticked away at a steady pace, letting him know that the site was quite radioactive.

Beyond the wreckage of the house, Luke could see Megaton's entrance; the bus which had gotten itself stuck no longer existed. A twisted stretch of blackened metal was all that remained of it. Much of Megaton's walls had been brought down in the immediate vacinity of the wreckage, allowing a small trickle of raiders to stream in. Though they were quickly gunned down. It was not long before the raiders stopped coming.

Not far from the wreckage was a group of settlers and a few of the "Holy Warriors." The latter group were shouting at each other, gathering around a sheet of metal on the ground and pulling at it. At first, Luke couldn't hear what they were shouting, it took a few minutes until the ringing in his ears subsided, at which point he could hear them loud and clear.

"Saint Matthew has fallen!"

It wasn't the way he would have expected to hear of his brother's death, but it hit him hard nonetheless. It was like he had just ran into a wall, he couldn't breath, but he started running anyway, running over to where his brother was. He ran straight past the blast site; the heat was almost unbearable, but he kept going anyway, even when the Followers of Atom pleaded for him to slow down or take a safer route, he kept going.  
He skidded to a halt before where Matthew had fallen, he could see now that a large, rectangular piece of metal must have landed on top of him.

Luke grabbed one of the edges and began pulling at it. "Don't just stand there, you idiots," he addressed his entourage, "help me!"

Several other people grabbed the sides of the metal, pulling and heaving. It was very heavy, but they eventually managed to haul it up a few inches, enough for Matthew to be pulled out from under it. They allowed the scrap to drop with a thud. Most of the Megaton settlers began to amble away from them then, but the Holy Warriors, the eight who remained, stayed by their side, forming a sort of ring around them.

Matthew was dragged a few feet away from it, propped up against an upturned refrigerator. Luke an over to him and looked at his face, the eyes opened.  
"I was wondering whe. You would show up." He wheezed.

Luke punched his chest. "I thought you were dead."

Matthew brought his hand up to the afflicted region of his torso. "Would you miss me?" He laughed. "That explosion," he said, changing the subject, "was that you?"

Luke shook his head. "It was Alice," he pointed towards the woman, who turned her head at the mention of her name.

Matthew smiled at her, "Well done, Alice." She smiled politely in return.

Luke looked around. "Where's Mel? Is he..."

"He was shot, but he's in the clinic - alive."

Luke nodded and considered the state of this part of Megaton. There was a large, radioactive crater where there had once been a house, fortunately it looked unoccupied, and Sheriff Simm's house was a smouldering ruin, though still recognisable as formerly being a structure. There were bullet holes pock-marking almost every surface, and hundreds of spent rounds across the ground. More grimly, there were a lot of bodies, both raider and settler, lying around the place, their faces either revealing agony or peacefulness, if they had any face left at all.

"Why did they do this..." Luke muttered to himself, suddenly feeling very homesick and fatigued as the adrenaline wore off. He felt out of his depth, he had just killed several raiders, and watched over a dozen more turn to atoms and yet he had barely suffered a scratch. 'This is only my second day out of the vault,' he thought to himself. He checked his pip-boy's time. 'Scratch that. Third day. But I've already done so much and home already seems a hundred years ago.'

He was shaken from his reverie by the muffled sound of sobs. He cocked his head to the side, trying to hear the sound more clearly. It was difficult to hear anything over the roar of the flames and Luke began to think he was imagining it when he heard a small cry, it definately wasn't his imagination.

He crouched nearer to the ground, cupping his hand over his ear, trying to hear it again.  
"What are you doing, Luke?" Matthew asked him with a sigh.

"I heard something. I swear." He held his ear to the refrigerator, his brother was sitting beside. Everything was silent for a few moments, then he heard it again. "There's somebody in this thing." He grabbed the refrigerator and tried to pull it over, Matthew picked himself up and tried to help.

With some effort, they managed to roll the machine over and tear the door open. Inside was a child, probably no older than ten years old, covered in foodstuffs and liquids, including blood. He was sobbing softly. Luke quickly picked up the child, who merely continued to sob.

"We should get him to the clinic." Luke said. Not waiting for a response, he jogged down into the crater towards the clinic. Matthew and the "Holy Warriors" followed him.  
The clinic was overflowing with injured. Mattresses and blankets were carpeting the ground around the building, almost every one of them occupied by a wounded settler. Some other people staggered in between the makeshift beds, handing out water, food, and medicine. Luke saw an old, haggard looking man with a disturbing volume of blood on his white clothing. He noted that the man was probably the doctor of Megaton, and almost certainly very busy.

Luke moved over to the nearest mattress and layer the child down upon it. "What's your name?" He asked, casually looking to see where he was wounded.

"Harden Simms." He said between sobs. "My dad is the sheriff."

Luke looked up at the nearest if his "Holy Warriors" and told him to find the sheriff.  
"It's going to be okay, Harden." Luke said softly, not really sure if he was telling the truth. "Can you tell me what happened?"

Harden continued to cry softly. He looked at Luke, into his eyes. Luke did his best to appear trustworthy and friendly. "I was in bed," he mumbled, "and I heard noises, so I woke up." He sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. "Dad told me to stay in bed, and he ran outside. I was scared, so I hid in the refrigerator."

"And then what, Harden?" Matthew asked, interjecting.

"I don't know. There was another loud noise and everything broke. The glass... It cut me." He held up his right arm, which was covered with large cuts. "It hurts." He sobbed again.

Luke reached for his first aid kit which hung around his belt. Opening it up for the first time, he took out some bandages and disinfectant and tried to treat the gashes in Harden's arm. The boy winced in pain and cried out whenever Luke touched him.  
Matthew kneeled down next to him. "You're very brave." He said.

Luke blushed as he realised that his brother was talking to Harden and not, in fact, himself.

"How old are you, Harden?" Matthew asked him.

"Ten." He responded, seeming slightly proud, despite the pain he was in.

"Really?" He asked, feigning surprise. When Harden nodded, he continued, "When I was ten, I got a baseball for my birthday."

"I got a baseball cap." Luke interrupted, remembering the day. "And a black eye from Butch." He muttered under his breath.

Matthew ignored his brother. He reached into one of the pockets on his suit and pulled out a baseball. "Here it is." He said simply. "I've had this for nine years, Harden." He tossed the ball into the air and caught it. "I want you to have it."

Harden eyes him suspiciously. "Really? You're not messing around?"

Matthew shook his head and offered it to him. "You deserve it. After all, you're braver than I am." He smiled. Harden took the ball eagerly, grinning.

Luke was touched by his brother's gesture as he finished wrapping the bandages. He looked at Harden, running the fingers of his newly freed hand over the ridges on the ball. Luke took the opportunity to inject the boy with a small does of Med-X while he was distracted. Harden didn't seem to mind at all.

A man in a duster walked into view. "Harden!" He cried.

The boy turned around and ran towards the man. "Dad!" He shouted.

Sheriff Simms knelt in one knee and embraced his son, who jumped on him, laughing. "I was worried about you." Said the boy.

"And I was worried about you, Son." Lucas had tears in his eyes. They continued to hug for several moments. Afterwards, Lucas stood up and marched towards the vault dwellers.

"Lewis and Michael, right?" He asked tentatively.

"Luke and Matthew." The brothers corrected.

"Right, that was it." He smiled. "I want to thank you for saving my boy and my town. If there's anything I can do for you, anything at all, you just let me know." He held out his hand, Luke and Matthew each shook it in turn.

"It was no trouble at all, Sheriff." Luke said. "Now, if you'll excuse us, we need to find our... Companion." He was unsure whether or not Mel was a friend, they had only met hours ago, after all, and that was down the length barrel of a shotgun. Still, Luke found that Mel was growing in him; the man was very useful, he had knowledge of the wastes and its inhabitants and he seemed to be good in a fight, showing some tactical knowledge. If only he didn't stutter...

The sheriff nodded and led his son away from the clinic, allowing the boy to sit upon his broad shoulders. The brothers watched him go, disappearing into the darkness, a sense of longing overcoming them both.

* * *

Matthew opened his eyes lazily, sunlight streaming down upon his face. This was the first time Matthew had ever awoken like this, it was normally to an electronic alarm or a harsh fluorescent light. He had to admit that this was a welcome change. He rolled over and checked his pip-boy, it was just before ten in the morning. He sat up and stretched, hearing and feeling his joints pop. With a sigh, he pulled himself out of bed and stood on the cold metal floors.

He reached for the duffle bag, opened it up and took out a vault jumpsuit, not his armoured one, and, making sure it was one of his own, lazily put it on. When he was done, he looked around the room. Luke was still sleeping and so was Mel, who had only suffered a relatively minor injury to the left shoulder the previous night - relative to most other wounded anyway. Without another thought, Matthew descended the central spiral staircase of the Church if Atom and quickly left the building before one of the worship peers could ask for his blessing or something.

He began making his way towards Megaton's common house, where he knew there were some limited bathing facilities. Lord knew he needed to wash, he was barely able to handle his own stench after three days of going without soap.

As he walked through the town, which seemed to be on a permanent state of readiness with everybody openly brandishing weapons, he pondered the Children of Atom's theology. From what little he had picked up, they seemed to believe that nuclear explosions were good, with the Great War being some sort of holy event to them. They seemed to believe that there is an entire universe within every atom, and when an atom is split, hundreds of new universes were created. Matthew didn't quite understand their logic, but who was he to question their faith?

What puzzled him, however, was why the Children of Atom seemed to think that Luke was a Prophet. All he had do e was stand in some water (in it, not on it) and drink a little of it, getting himself thoroughly irradiated in the process. Surely that had happened before? Or maybe they were simply impressed that he hadn't sprouted a set of antlers yet. Even if that were the case, how did that tie in with their doctrine?  
Matthew ran a few theories through his mind. Did they believe that Luke was going to combust in an awesome atomic explosion? Or did they believe he was going to cause one? He really had no idea.

He decided to push the thoughts away as he twisted the valve which turned in the shower in the bathing room. He took off his clothes and stepped under the stream of water. It was cold and his pip-boy told him it was irradiated, Matthew continued to wash himself, but he was a little quicker than usual, he wouldn't want to end up deified like Luke, after all. In all, he spent less than five minutes in the shower, probably too long, but much less time than he was used to.

As he stared at his face in the mirror, comb in hand, he began messing around with his hair, brushing it into random styles. He eventually settled for leaving it as it was, flat and inconspicuous, and left the common house.

As he made his way back to the Church if Atom, he began mentally drafting up plans of what they were going to do today. First things first would be to take a dose of Rad-Away. Next would be to subject Luke and Mel to a shower; Luke was becoming intolerably smell-able, and Mel wasn't much better. Then he'd like to eat something. He was starving. The last time he'd eaten was the previous day, it was a box of sugar bombs. A good tasting sugary cereal from before the war.

Then, maybe, they'd be able to leave Megaton and search for dad. What had started out as a two hour head start had turned into a three day lead. It was frustrating, to say the least. 'Something' told him, however, that they wouldn't be starting that particular search just yet.

Said 'Something' was Luke, pulling on his armoured jumpsuit and checking his rifle's ammunition. He did not look like he was ready to go anywhere in dad's direction today.  
"Luke," he said, as he entered the room. "Whatever you're doing, you're not doing it yet."

Luke shot him a look. "Did you see what those raiders did last night? They need to pay."

"Maybe so, but you can't go like that." He observed.

"Like what?" He asked, confusion etched on his face.

"Smelling like you do." He said frankly. "Look at the state of yourself, you're letting yourself go. You need a wash."

Luke simply stared at him, not sure what to say.

"Go to the common house, Luke. Clean yourself up. Take a few Rad-X first, but clean yourself up."

* * *

It was noon, Luke, Matthew, and Mel had just exited the Church of Atom, feeling refreshed, clean, and not at all hungry. It was a good feeling, observed Matthew as he tightened the straps of his suit and duffle bag. They skirted around the opposite end of the bomb from where Cromwell was preaching, hoping to avoid being dragged into a sermon.

As they picked their way carefully across the carpet of wounded outside the clinic, they were approached by Sheriff Simms, who was leading a handful of men, twelve of them.  
"Boys." The sheriff tipped his hat towards them.

"Hello, Sheriff." Luke said amicably.

"Call me Lucas." He responded. "We need your help."

"We'll be happy to provide it, Lucas."

Matthew sighed at his brother's eagerness. "Help with what, Lucas?" He asked, though he could guess.

"We're going to strike back at those raiders." He said bringing his hand up to the revolver at his waist. "We need to show that Megaton won't be pushed around."

"Okay then." Matthew said, accepting that he couldn't convince his brother to remain uninvolved. Even if he could convince him, Matthew didn't particularly want too. He had grown fond of Megaton, despite its lack of... Cleanliness, it had character and community. He liked that.

"Do you know where the raiders are?" Luke asked.

"Not yet. But I know somebody who does." The sheriff stepped aside, revealing a middle aged man with very short hair and a scruffy, though short, beard. He was wearing leather armour, but had no weapons. "This is Jericho." He said. The brothers noticed that Jericho had his hands bound together and that he looked very unhappy. "He's the reason the raiders were here. He knows something or has something they want."

"I told you fuckers: I don't know nothin'." He spat.

"Shut it, scumbag." One of the men said, striking him with the butt if his pistol.

"We can't let him stay in Megaton anymore. So he'll come with us, lead us to the raiders, then we'll take care of him." The sheriff said in an emotionless voice.

Matthew didn't particularly like the sound of the "take care of him" part, but wasn't going to bring it up. He cast a glance at his brother, it didn't look like he would bring it up either, though if he knew Luke, and he did, then the subject would be mentioned sooner or later.

"Alright sheriff." Luke said, looking at Mel and Matthew. "We'll help you with the raiders."  
Lucas smiled at them. "I always had a good feeling about you two." He turned to address the assembled militia. "Let's move out and deliver some wasteland justice."

The group of fifteen began ascending the side of the crater, towards the miniature crater that used to be Megaton's entrance.

When they had gotten halfway up, somebody grabbed Matthew's arm. He turned to face them.

"I'm coming with you." A female voice said. It was the so-called Holy Warrior from the previous night.

"Alice, right?" Matthew gulped, looking at her body, it was fully armoured in leather and scrap metal, with a rifle but poking over her shoulder and a sub machine gun at her hip, her brown hair would have fallen half way down her back had it not been tied up into a bun.

She nodded. "You remember me then?" It was a rhetorical question. "Good. I'll be accompanying you today."

"Uh... Sure, okay." He said.

She seemed surprised. "Really? You won't argue with me and tell me to stay?"  
"Would that work?" He asked.

She smiled. "Of course not."

"Then why are we still standing here?" He looked up at the group, they were at the lip of the crater, not having noticed that he had fallen behind.

Saying nothing, she began walking after the group at a brisk pace. Matthew tried to keep up with her.

After a few minute of silence, by which point they had clambered through the twisted metal remains of the bus, Matthew decided to say something.  
"So why are you coming?"

"I want to leave Megaton's monotony." She said. "It's very boring.

"Yeah, raider attacks, exploding buses. Sounds very dull." The sarcasm was poorly masked.

She laughed. "You, your brother, and that stuttering guy are the most interesting thing to happen to this town in years." She said, looking back at the town in question. "Where you go, interesting things seem to happen." After a few moments, she added, "I like that."

Satisfied with her explanation, they settled into silence. Matthew listened to the quiet, nervous, uninteresting conversations of the militiamen, neglecting to join them.

Sheriff Simms walked at the head of the party, an assault rifle in his hands and a look of determination on his face. Luke walked a few paces behind him, less heavily armed but no less determined. Mel walked alongside him neither as well armed or as determined. Jericho walked just behind them, a pistol pointed at his head, occasionally, Lucas would turn to him and talk in hushed tones, asking for information, which Jericho seemed to relinquish reluctantly.  
They made their way to Springvale where they gathered in the shade of a desolated house which stood near what used to be a gas station. Behind the building, Lucas informed them, was another building which used to be an elementary school but was now occupied by raiders. Lucas told them that there were only two entrances, but that one of them was usually lightly guarded, probably even more so now with the manpower shortages they no doubt suffered. Their plan was simple: go in, kill the raiders, leave. "Wasteland Justice" Lucas called it.

They all moved as one group towards the school, maintaining a quick pace and keeping an eye out for raiders. Things were going well until Matthew spotted a tiny reflection of sunlight from the building. An instant later, before he could say anything about what he had seen, a militiaman's head exploded, showering Matthew with his brains. Wordlessly, the group ran faster, each person trying to look inconspicuous to the sniper.

Matthew felt a bullet scream by his ear and slam into the chest of the man behind him. Looking back, he saw that the man was still alive, writhing in pain as blood poured out of him wound. He was put down a few seconds later by another sniper's bullet through the chest.

The militia reached the walls of the building without anymore casualties, athough one of the men had been wounded - a minor graze to the leg. The group knew that the sniper was above them, and so they shuffled along, backs to the wall, moving towards the door.  
As they approached the entrance, two raiders burst out from it, brandishing pistols. They were put down by a burst from the Sheriff's assault rifle. The militia quickly hurried inside.

'Once upon a time,' Matthew thought, 'children were here.' There were no children here now. No living children anyway. A large cage confronted the group as they entered, small skeletons were interred within. Elsewhere in the room, a couple of corpses were bolted to the wall, their limbs skewed into unnatural positions. An awful smell pervaded, it was the smell of death. Matthew held back a gag, closed his eyes, and marched forward, following the Sheriff, who seemed to be unaffected.

"Deja vu..." Said Jericho in a tone which Matthew had some trouble identifying, before realising with horror that it was glee.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, Jericho?" He asked him.

The man turned to face him, his eyes inspecting Matthew cautiously. "Ain't nothin' wrong with me, kid. You just gotta enjoy the little things."

Matthew didnt know what to say to that, he was stunned - a man had just told him that he enjoyed such mutilation and barbarity. There was nothing he could say.

The group moved past the cage, through a set of broken wooden doors and into a hallway which was filled with lockers. They stalked down the hallway, their footsteps sounding like explosions in the quiet. Matthew knew that the raiders were aware of their presence, so either they were not here in sufficient numbers to do anything, or the group was walking into an ambush.

Matthew considered the latter possibility for a few seconds before voicing his concerns.  
"Sheriff." He said, he voice carrying through the halls. "I think they may be waiting for us."

"Yep." He said simply. "We're probably going to be ambushed."

A shiver passed through the group of militia, each man whispering to the other, readying their weapons.

"And... What? You're just going to walk into it?" One of the men asked.

"Yep. We know its coming. We won't be surprised."

"This is going to be a very bad day." Alice said to herself. Matthew chuckled, despite the tension. Alice looked at him and began to laugh. Beside them, a few of the militia began to giggle nervously. Then Jericho began to cackle, the sound bouncing off the walls of the school. Soon enough, the entire group was laughing. Nobody knew why, but they laughed.

* * *

"What the fuck? They're laughin'! They're fuckin' laughin'!" Simmons whispered to Steve, her voice muffled by the Arc-Light helmet.

"Fuck this." Steve said firmly. "I ain't here to get shot at by a bunch of lunatics. Fuck Boppo and his fuckin' plan." Steve stood up and began running down the hallway, away from the militia. Simons followed him, agreeing with his views.

Soon enough, the other raiders which were lying in ambush fled the hallways, retreating from the school entirely, unwilling to face the seemingly insane militia. Only three of the raiders remained to carry out the ambush. Those three had been so pumped up with drugs that they just didn't care.

* * *

"It's a trap!" Shouted one of the militia as a bullet tore into his throat, spurting hot blood over his comrades.

The militia dived to the sides of the hallway, taking cover behind overturned lockers and rubble, Matthew dragged Jericho, who was still restrained, to the ground. The cover was unnecessary, however, as the raiders, three of them, opted to use mêlée weapons, knives and nine irons.

They were taken down by a hail of bullets from the militia.

The man whose throat had been ripped open was dead by the time it was over, Lucas Simms closed the man's eyelids and took of his hat for a few moments. He then continued on his way, his militia following him. The ground passed by some classrooms, all empty, as they stalked through the hallways. Matthew was just beginning to think that most of the raiders must have been killed the previous night when he saw them.

They stood at the end of a hallway, at least fifteen of them, brandishing rifles, pistols, and knives. A man with a purple Mohawk stood at the head of them.

"Sheriff." He said in a rough voice.

"You attacked my town." Simms said, avoiding formalities. "You've got to pay."

"Hold on, sheriff. We can all walk away from this happy." He said, holding up his arms in a gesture of surrender. "Name's Boppo, by the way."

"What you talkin' about, Boppo?" The sheriff asked, his trigger finger twitching.

"We'll leave Springvale if you give us Jericho." He said with a sneer. "And we'll let you walk away."

"And if we don't?"

"Then we'll kill you and take him. And then, we'll go after your town again."

At that, a grumble swept through the militia, they raised their weapons at the raiders. Boppo laughed.

"Why do you want Jericho?" Luke asked, his voice lacking confidence.

"None of your business!" Said Simms angrily. Luke was taken aback by the show of aggression, as was the rest of the group.

Boppo laughed again. "Turns out, kid, that Jericho pissed a lot of people off back in the day. Now he's gotta pay, we've gotta take him to our employers. Alive, but we can have a little fun with him first." He grinned, he had many missing teeth, those which he did have were brown and disgusting.

"Your just going to turn me over, Sheriff?" Asked Jericho. "After what I did for you?"

Lucas did not turn to face him. "What you did for me?" He spat, sounding very angry.

"What about what you did to me, Jericho? I should have killed you when I had the chance."

"Alright, alright, alright." Said Boppo, pulling out a pistol. "Let's skip the reminiscing and cut to the chase. Hand him over, Simms."

Lucas hesitated, deep in thought. One of the militia sneezed.

Matthew, who had readied his rifle, chose a target and aimed down the barrel. It was a woman, she was wearing a helmet that looked like a gas mask, her skin was burned red by the sun, and she wore junk for armour. He aimed for her chest.

"Well, Simms, what's it gonna be?"

The sheriff's head was bowed, his hat shielding his face. He twitched slightly. Then raised his head.

"No." Was the response.

Simms aimed his rifle and began firing, the militia following his example. Matthew fired his weapon at his target, the bullet struck her in the chest, and so did at least three others. He pulled back the slightly rusted bolt and fired again, hitting another raider. He repeated the action again and again, until the raiders were all dead.

Matthew surveyed the damage. Six of the militia had been killed, and the sheriff's hat was lying in the floor, a bullet having ripped it off. Lucas himself, however, was alive, though he was lying on the floor, a bullet lodged in his leg. Luke, Mel, and Alice were fine, as were eight of the rest of the militia. Jericho was standing to the rear of the group, smiling slightly.

The raiders were dead, those with knives had only gotten halfway down the hallway before succumbing to the wall of lead. Those with guns had had trouble firing at the militia, due to the presence of their knife-toting comrades, many of them had fired their weapons anyway, killing allies and enemies alike. Boppo, Matthew could see, had gotten the farthest of all the raiders, within a meter of the sheriff, before having a part of his head blown off.

Lucas dragged himself to his feet, aided by Luke and one of the militia. He pulled out a revolver and marched through his men, a grimace on his face. He shoved Matthew out of the way and grabbed Jericho, pushing him to he knees. He pressed the revolver down onto the top of Jericho's skull.

Luke rushed forwards, knocking Matthew over as he was recovering from the Sheriff's shove, and grabbed Simms by the shoulders, throwing him to the ground.

The militia were stunned into silence as Simms pulled himself to his feet with a grunt.  
"Stand aside, boy." He growled.

"No." Was the response.

"I need to deliver justice. He needs to pay for his crimes." His gaze darted past Luke, at Jericho, for a brief moment.

"He doesn't deserve to be executed by you, not after having just been saved from that fate from somebody else." He put his hand on his pistol, his rifle having been left lying in the floor.

"I need to deal out justice." The sheriff spat.

"Who are you to deliver it?"

"The sheriff of Megaton."

"We aren't in Megaton." He pointed out.

"Well then I guess I'm just another raider out here." He aimed his pistol. "Step aside, boy. Or I'll shoot you too."

"No, you won't."

"What makes you so sure."

"I helped your son." Luke said simply.

The sheriff's gaze softened for a moment, before _harden_ing again.

"So did I, kid. Never did me any good." Jericho intoned.

Luke didn't look at Jericho, he continued to stare at the sheriff.

"Like I said, Luke. What makes you so sure?" Simms pulled back the firing pin on his gun.

"I have a gun to your head." Said Matthew, shoving a rifle into the back of the man's skull. "That's what makes him so sure."

The Sheriff didn't seem surprised, he dropped the gun to his side. Mel grabbed the gun from him and turned it towards a militiaman who had raised his pistol to Matthew. In turn, Mel saw the barrel of a rifle out of the corner of his eye and felt another one on the back of his head. Both of these men felt guns at their heads too, a submachine gun and a pistol, held by the woman, Alice.

The other three militiamen looked confused, scared, and indecisive. Two of them were injured, unable to pick a side, the other man was shaking, a small puddle gathering at his feet.

"Stand down, Simms." Luke said, drawing his 10mm pistol and pointing it towards the three other men. "Or people will die."

"No." He said. "This man can't be allowed back into Megaton, he's nothing but trouble. And he need to receive justice."

Luke thought for a moment, his eyes staring into the sheriff's, trying to read the man. It wasn't working. He couldn't tell what he was thinking. The sheriff looked angry and pained. But not just the physical pain from his leg, something inside was hurting him.

"Fine." Said Luke, making a gamble. "He won't return to Megaton." Lucas seemed surprised at this, so did everyone else in the room. "He'll come with me. With us."

Lucas' surprise only increased, as did Matthew's. "Say what now?" They both said.

"I'll take Jericho. He can help us. And you won't see him ever again, Lucas."

The sheriff looked solemn, his eyes falling to the ground. "Fine." He said. "Take him to hell for all I care." He raised his arm. "Stand down, everyone." Eagerly, the militia lowered their guns, Matthew, Mel, and Alice following suit.

Luke grabbed Jericho's arm and dragged him, forcefully, to his feet. Matthew marched forward and cut the ropes binding the man's hands.

The sheriff looked up and into Luke's eyes. "He's a raider, boy." He said slowly.

"I told you, I ain't into that shit no more." Jericho said.

Simms ignored him. "You can't trust him. If he kills innocents... It's on your conscience."  
Luke nodded his head slowly.

"If I see him in my town again, I'll kill him." He spat. "If I see any of you standing in the way, I'll shoot you too." He then walked away, shouldering past Mel. His militia followed him, eager to leave the school.

The group remained silent for a while, gathering the weapons and ammunition of the dead raiders and militia, whom the sheriff had simply left to rott. Eventually, they left the school, blinking in the sunlight.

Luke fell to the ground as Matthew's fist impacted against his face.

"Damn it, Luke! Don't fucking do shit like that!"

Luke brought his hand up to his nose. It was bleeding.

"I couldn't let Jericho be executed." He whined.

"Yeah, thanks for that, kid." The man intoned while lighting up a cigarette.

"Well, thanks to you," Matthew said, addressing them both "we have nowhere to stay tonight, and nowhere to buy food, and..." He sighed in exasperation, rubbing his temples.

"Look on the bright side, Matthew." Luke said, picking himself up from the ground. "We have another person to talk to."

"Fuck no." Said Jericho. "I ain't going with you, kid. No offence but... You're a little..."

"What?" Luke said. "You owe me, Jericho. I saved your life."

Jericho thought for a moment. "What is it that you pampered vault assholes are doing out here anyway?"

"We're looking for our dad." Said Matthew. "He's at Galaxy News Radio."

"Well, fuck, kids, I can get you there." He said. "I'll take you to Galaxy News, then I'm done with you, alright?"

"Yeah, fine." Luke sighed. "But we're not going to Galaxy News just yet."

"N-now wait a minute. I thought I was g-g-going to lead you to G-g-g-g-g-"

Jericho laughed. "G-g-g-g-g!" He mocked. "You can't even say the damn words, how do you know where it is?"

Mel looked insulted and angry. "I've b-been there."

"Really? When?" He asked.

"When I was a mercenary." He said defiantly.

Jericho smiled. "Which company? Talon company?" He burst into laughter, holding his side, he then descended into a racking cough which subsided after a few moments.

Mel looked him in the eye and said, "Reilly's Rangers."

Jericho paused for a moment, wiping spittle from his mouth. "Bullshit."

"It doesn't matter who leads us there." Luke said, standing between them. "Jericho, you're our plan B."

Jericho shrugged. "Whatever."

"Alright. First of all, we're going to Minefield first anyway. Secondly," he turned his attention to Alice, "why are you here? Shouldn't you be going back to Megaton?" The rest of the group looked at her too, she seemed not to notice.

"I'm coming with you," she said in a nonchalant manner.

"Really?" Luke asked. "Says who?"

"Says me." Said Matthew, wincing as he did so.

"Okay then." Luke chirped, bemused at his brother's intervention.

Matthew looked at Alice, and she at him, he then shrugged and turned away from her.  
"D-do I get to... choose the next team mate?" Asked Mel.

Luke stared at him, studying him, and only realising it was a joke when Mel grinned nervously, Luke grinned back.


End file.
